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UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  L 

BRAf 

—1 

GIFT  OF 

SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 

DR.JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 

JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


JOHN  FISKE 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


MH  1  8  f929 


,        f 


MAN  A  CREATIVE    FIRST 
CAUSE 


€too  SDi^cout^c^ 


DELIVERED  AT  CONCORD,  MASS.,  JULY,  1882 


HY 

ROWLAND  G.  HAZARD,  LL.  D. 

AUTHOR   OP   "language    AND     OTHEIl    PAPERS,'"    "TOE     ADAPTATION    OF  THE 

UNIVERSE    TO    THE    CULTIVATION    OF    THE    MIND,"    "THE    PHILOSOPHICAL 

CHARACTER  OF  CHANNING,'"  "FREEDOM  OP   MIND   IN   WaLING,'' 

"LETTERS   TO  JOHN   STUART   MILL   ON  CAUSATION,"  ETC. 


BOSTON 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

New  York  :   1!   East  Seventeenth  Street 

1884 


879&v> 


Copyright,  1883, 
ROWLAND  G.  HAZARD 

All  riylds  reserved. 


I     <■  "^  .' 


r/je  Riverside  Press,  Cambridge: 
Electrotyped  and  Printed  by  II.  0.  Houghton  and  Company. 


Y7  In  printing  a  second  edition  of  "  Man  a  Creative  First 

Cause,"  the  accompanying  pages  have  been  added  to  the 
Notes  at  the  end  of  the  volume,  and  they  are  now  sent  to 
those  who  have  received  the  first  edition,  that  they  may 

CL*  insert  them  in  their  copies.     A  new  title-page  is  also  sup- 

^  plied,  which  can  be  substituted  for  that  now  in  the  volume. 

r".  The  references  to  the  additional  notes  are :  Note  A.,  p. 

16,  end  of  first  paragraph;  Note  B.,  p.  108,  end  of  first 

^         paragraph. 
02 


PEEFACE. 


In  these  discourses  I  have  intended  briefly  to 
present  the  leading  residts  of  previous  investiga- 
tions, most  of  which  had  ah-eady  been  published ; 
but  more  especially  to  vindicate  metaphysical  sci- 
ence from  the  charge  of  being  unfruitful,  by  show- 
ing that  in  its  proper  application  to  the  subject  of 
its  investigation,  it  is  susceptible  of  the  highest 
practical  utility. 

I  have  endeavored  to  show  that,  to  say  nothing 
of  the  invigorating  exercise  of  such  study,  it  may 
be  a  means  of  making  the  same  amount  of  intel- 
lectual power  more  effective,  by  the  invention  or 
discovery  of  better  methods  in  its  application ;  and 
further,  that  in  this  its  own  proper  realm,  —  the 
realm  of  the  spirit,  —  it  may  achieve  a  yet  higher 
utility,  a  utility  transcending  all  other,  in  creat- 
ing, moulding,  and  elevating  the  moral  character. 
I  have  also  pointed  out  some  modes  in  which  the 
creative  powers  of  mind  may  be  successfully  ex- 
erted for  these  objects. 

Peace  Dale,  Rhode  Island, 
September,  1883. 


CONTENTS. 


FIRST  DISCOURSE. 

MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

§  1.  General  Indifference  to  the  Subject. 

Utility  of  Metapliysics.  It  may  add  to  intellectual  power, 
and  thus  improve  that  whic-h  invents  or  makes  all  other 
utility,  but  its  special  sphere  of  utility  will  be  found  in 
our  moral  nature 1 

§  2.  Characteristics  of  Mind. 
Knowledge,  feeling,  and  volition.  Mind  knows,  feels,  and 
wills.  Tlie  will  is  its  only  real  faculty.  An  act  of  will 
is  simply  an  effort.  All  intelligent  beings  are  thus  con- 
stituted, and  to  these  attributes  there  is  no  conceivable 
limit 2 

§  3.  Relations  and  Functions  of  Mental  Charac- 
teristics. 

It  is  conceivable  th.it  we  might  liave  knowledge  onl}',  but 
we  could  not  have  feeling  without  knowing  it.  We 
might  have  knowledge  and  feeling  without  will,  but  will 
without  these  would  bo  dormant  and  merely  jjotential. 
An  nnintelligent  being  cannot  be  self-active.  Our  sensa- 
tions are  not  dependent  on  the  will,  nor  is  our  knowledge. 
The  truth  is  often  apparent  witlioiit  effort.  The  addi- 
tions to  our  knowledge  are  always  simple  immediate  mental 
perceptions.  Feeling  (sensation  and  emotion)  incites  to 
action,  but  is  not  itself  active.  Knowledge  enal)lcs  us  to 
direct  our  efforts,  but  is  itself  passive.  By  will  we  pro- 
duce change  and  thus  act  as  cause.  Our  own  will  is  tlie 
only  cause  of  which  we  are  directly  conscious.    Weans 


vi  CONTENTS. 

by  which  we  come  to  know  ourselves,  our  fellow  beings, 
aud  God  as  causes   ...,.., 3 

§  4.  Existence  of  Matter  and  its  Relations  to  Cause. 

We  know  matter  onl}'  as  an  inference,  from  the  sensations 
which  we  impute  to  its  agency,  and  these  are  not  conclu- 
sive as  to  any  such  external  existence.  The  phenomena 
are  all  as  fully  accounted  for,  on  the  hypothesis  that  they 
are  the  thoughts  and  imagery  of  God's  mind  directly  im- 
pressed upon  our  own.  In  either  case  it  is  the  expression 
of  his  thought,  and  to  us  equally  real.  Matter  and  spirit 
arc  still  contradistinguished.  The  ideal  hypothesis  is  the 
more  simple  and  more  nearly  in  accord  with  powers  we 
ourselves  exert.  We  can  ourselves  create  such  imagery, 
and  to  some  extent  make  it  durable,  and  palpable  to 
others.  But  we  find  no  rudiment  of  power  in  these  crea- 
tions of  our  own,  and  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  in- 
crease of  power  in  the  creator  of  them  could  imbue  them 
with  any.  If  matter  exists,  being  inert,  it  can  have  no 
power  to  change  itself,  and  even  if  endowed  with  power 
to  move,  being  unintelligent,  il  could  have  no  tendency  to 
move  in  one  direction  rather  than  another.  Such  power 
of  self-movement  would  be  a  nullity,  and  matter  can  only 
be  an  iustrununt  wliich  intelligence  uses  to  aid  its  efforts. 
Against  these  arguments  it  may  be  said  that  matter  has 
always  existed  aud  was  always  in  motion,  as  intelligence, 
with  its  activity,  is  presumed  to  have  had  no  beginning. 
To  assume  the  existence  of  both  when  one  is  sufficient  is 
uuphilosophical,  and  the  spiritual  should  have  precedence. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  matter,  which  does  not  know, 
should  create  spirit,  which  does  know  ;  wliile  it  is  quite 
conceivable  that  spirit  should  create  all  we  know  of  mat- 
ter. But  whether  matter,  even  if  in  motion,  can  be  a 
cause  or  power,  depends  upon  this  question,  —  if  left  to 
itself  and  the  moving  power  withdrawn,  would  it  stop  or 
continue  to  move  ?  If  its  tendency  is  to  stop,  it  could  not 
even  be  an  instrument  for  conserving  or  extending  the 
effects  of  otlier  ])0\ver.  Power  could  not  make  matter 
self-active,  or  the  subject  of  government  by  law.  Quies- 
cent it  could  only  be  acted  u])0u 6 


CONTENTS.  -ni 

§  5.  Of  Past  Events  as  Cause. 

The  theory  that  of  every  successive  event,  "  the  recal  cause 
is  the  wliole  of  the  antecedeuts,"  does  not  distinguish  be- 
tween the  passive  conditions  acted  upon  and  changed, 
and  the  active  agencies  which  act  upon  and  change  them. 
And  further,  the  necessary  adjunct  and  corollary  to  this 
theory  of  succession  is,  that  the  same  causes  must  produce 
the  same  effects.  But  all  cause  acts  upon  a  wholly  void 
and  therefore  homogeneous  f utur-e ;  and  as  at  every  in- 
stant the  whole  past  is  everywhere  the  same,  the  succes- 
sive effects  must  at  each  instant  be  everywhere  one  and 
the  same.  On  this  theory  of  the  whole  antecedents,  the 
same  causes  never  could  act  twice,  and  there  could  be  no 
proof  from  experience  that  the  same  causes  must  produce 
the  same  effect.  The  only  cause  we  can  logically  recog- 
nize is  that  of  intelligent  effort 12 

§  f).  Freedom  in  Willing. 
This  has  been  a  prominent  question  for  ages.  It  has  been 
obscured  by  erroneous  notions  and  defective  definitions 
of  will  and  freedom.  Defects  in  Edwards'  definitions  of 
these  terms  and  the  consecpient  fallacies  in  his  results. 
Will  is  the  faculty  of  effort.  An  act  of  will  is  an  effort, 
a  trying  to  do.  Freedom  as  applied  to  willing  is  self-con- 
trol. The  object  of  every  effort  must  be  to  make  the 
future  different  from  what  it  otherwise  would  be.  This 
is  the  only  conceivable  motive.  A  being  with  a  faculty 
of  effort,  want  to  incite,  and  knowledge  to  direct  it,  is  a 
self-active  being ;  could  act  if  there  were  no  other  j)ower 
or  activity.  The  will  cannot  be  directly  controlled  by 
any  extrinsic  power.  The  onlj'  way  it  can  be  influenced 
is  by  changing  the  knowledge  by  which  the  being  directs 
its  act  of  will,  and  this  would  not  avail  if  the  being  did 
not  will  freely.  The  notion  of  a  coerced  will,  and  the 
expression  for  it,  are  self-contradictory.  It  is  willing 
when  wc  are  not  willing.  The  future  is  alw.ays  the  com- 
posite creation  of  the  free  efforts  of  all  conative  beings 
acting  as  independent  powers  in  the  universe.  The  ac- 
tion even  by  the  lowest  order  may  influence  the  action  of 
the  highest.     This  inter  dependence  of  the  action  of  each 


viii  CONTENTS. 

without  interference  with  the  freedom  of  any,  is  illus- 
trated by  the  game  of  chess.  This  equal  and  perfect 
freedom  iu  all  does  not  imi)air  the  sovereignty  of  the 
supreme  intelligence 15 

§  7.  Instinct,  Eeason,  and  Habit. 
Instinctive  actions  have  been  generally  deemed  exceptionaL 
We  perform  them  so  easily,  that  our  agency  in  them  es- 
capes observation,  and  hence  they  have  been  regarded, 
not  only  as  not  self-controlled,  but  as  necessitated  and 
even  as  purely  mechanical.     That  all  animals  at  birth, 
without  previous  instruction  or  experience,  act  instinct- 
ively, indicates  not  that  the  voluntary  effort  is  wanting, 
but  that  the  knowledge  to  direct  it  is  innate.     In  all  cases 
requiring  more  than  one  movement  we  must  have  a  ])lan. 
In  the  instinctive  actions,  the  plan  is  innate,  read ij  formed 
in  the  mind  at  birth.     In  the  rational  actions,  we  have  to 
devise  the  plan.     When  by  repetition  in  act  or  thought,  we 
come  to  remember  the  successive  steps  of  this  plan,  and 
apply  it  by  rote,  without  reference  to  the  rationale,  it  also 
becomes  a  plan  ready  formed  in  the  mind,  and  our  action 
becomes  habitual.     In  it  the  process  is  the  same  as  in  the 
instinctive,  and  hence  the  common  adage,  habit  is  second 
nature.     Tlie  differences  in  the  three  kinds  of  actions  do 
not  lie  in  the  actions  themselves,  nor  in  the  knowledge,  nor 
in  the  application  of  it  to  direct  the  actions,  but  farther 
back,  iu  the  mode  in  which  we  obtained  the  knowledge 
we  thus  apply.     The  instinctive  and  habitual  and  rational 
actions  are  all  self-directed  by  knowledge  to  the  end  de- 
sired.    The  genesis  of  our  actions  must  be  instinctive. 
Through  habit,  memory  performs  the  same  office  for  ac- 
tion that  it  does  for  knowledge,  retaining  tlie  acquisi- 
tions of  the  past  for  future  use.     The  agency  of  habit,  in 
thus  conserving  previously  considered  modes  of  action, 
and  making  them  permanent   accretions  to   the  moral 
character,  is  its  most  important  function 23 

§  8.  Necessitarian  Argument  from  Cause  and  Effect. 

Necessitarians  assert  that  if  all  the  circumstances,  includ- 
ing mental  conditions  in  a  thousand  cases,  are  the  same, 
the  action  will  be  the  same,  and   that   this  uniformity 


CONTENTS.  IX 

proves  necessity.  Admitting  this,  wliether  one  of  the 
couditions  in  the  thousand  cases  is  tliat  of  ncrcssiti/  or  of 
freedom  does  not  vary  ihc  uiiil'onuity  of  tlie  result,  and 
hence  the  result  eanuot  indicate  either  necessity  or  free- 
dom   30 

§  9.  Influence  of  External  and  Internal  Conditions. 

We  act  as  freely  on  one  set  of  conditions  as  on  any  other, 
and  sucli  action,  being  self-conformed  to  the  external  cou- 
ditions and  our  internal  desires,  is  free.  Necessitarians 
have  been  at  much  pains  to  i)rove  that  our  actions  are 
always  in  conformity  to  our  choice  or  desire,  inclination, 
disposition,  and  moral  character.  This  proves  self-con- 
trol, i.  e.,  freedom.  Proof  that  our  willing  may  run 
counter  to  our  choice,  inclination,  etc.,  would  have  better 
subserved  their  purpose.  The  moral  character  is  mani- 
fested in  the  willing,  but  our  freedom  is  not  affected  by 
it.  Nor  is  it  material  to  the  question  of  freedom,  how  the 
being  came  to  be  such  a  being  as  it  is 33 

§  10.  Could  one  will  the  Contrary? 

It  is  absurd  and  contradictory,  to  suppose  that  freedom  re- 
quires that  one  might  try  to  do  what  he  had  determined 
not  to  try  to  do.  The  arguments  of  the  necessitarians 
that  our  acts  of  will  are  not  free,  because  they  must  con- 
form to  our  own  character,  desires,  and  decisions,  or  judg- 
ments, virtually  assert  that  one  is  not  free,  because  he  is 
constrained  to  be  free 34 

§  11.  Argument  from  Prescience. 
Edwards  and  others  hold  that  prescience  of  a  volition 
proves  necessity.  They  illogically  assume  that  it  must 
happen  by  restraint  or  coercion  of  the  willing  ngent.  If 
a  free  act  is  as  easily  predicted  as  one  that  is  not  free, 
the  argument  wholly  fails.  In  the  known  character  and 
habits  of  the  actor,  we  have  a  means  of  foreseeing  what 
he  will  do,  provided  he  acts  freely.  If  his  action  is  con- 
trolled by  extrinsic  power,  even  if  we  know  the  power, 
all  the  same  difficulties  exist  as  to  its  action  in  con- 
trolling the  act  of  another,  with  the  added  difficulty 
of  finding  what  the  effect  of  this  extrinsic  power  on  the 


X  CONTENTS. 

apparent  actor  would  be.     So  that  the  free  act  is  more 
easily  foiekuowu  than  a  coerced  or  iiufree  act     ....    35 

§  12.  A  Being  with  Will,  Knowledge,  and  Feelikg, 
IS  Self-Active.     Some  Conclusions  re-stated. 

Within  the  limits  of  its  power  and  knowledge,  such  a  being 
is  as  free  as  if  it  were  omnipotent  and  omniscient.  An 
oyster  that  can  only  move  its  shell,  in  doing  this  so  far 
creates  the  future.  For  the  exercise  of  his  creative  pow- 
ers man  has  two  spheres  of  effort,  the  external  and  the 
internal,  conveniently  designated  as  objective  and  subjec- 
tive. The  former  is  known  to  us  as  an  inference  from 
our  sensations.  Of  the  latter  we  are  directly  conscious. 
Our  efforts  for  cliaugo  in  either  sphere  are  always  sub- 
jective. For  objective  change  we  always  begin  by  a 
movement  of  our  muscles 38 

§  13.  Is  Matter  a  Distinct  Entity. 

Whether  we  adopt  the  materialistic  or  the  ideal  hypothesis, 
the  sensations  by  which  alone  we  cognize  matter  are  the 
same,  and  on  either  it  is  the  exj)ression  of  the  thoughts 
and  conceptions  of  its  creator,  and  the  only  cjuestion  is, 
whether  he  transfers  this  thought  and  imagery  dii-ectly 
to  our  minds,  or  indirectly,  by  painting,  carving,  or 
moulding  them  in  a  distinct  substance.  The  former  is 
the  more  simple,  and  equally  explains  all  the  phenomena, 
and  has  an  advantage  in  making  creation  more  conceiva- 
ble to  us.  Any  one  can  conceive  a  landscape,  and  vary 
it  at  will.  This  is  an  incipient  creation,  which  we  can 
very  imperfectly,  to  some  extent,  represent  in  durable 
form  and  impress  on  the  miiuls  of  others,  showing  that 
we  have  within  us  the  rudiments  of  all  the  faculties 
which  on  the  ideal  hypothesis  are  essential  to  creating. 
The  landscape  we  imagine  we  can  change  at  will,  and  by 
this  alone  we  distinguish  it  from  that  cognized  by  sensa- 
tion. If  our  own  ineii)ient  creation  should  become  so 
fixed  in  our  mind  that  we  coidd  not  change  it  at  will,  it 
would  be  to  us  an  external  reality.  This  sometimes  oc- 
curs. This  suggests  that  the  dilTerence  between  the 
creative  powers  in  man  and  the  sujjreme  intelligence  is 
mainly  iu  degree  and  not  in  kind,  and  that  the  disparity. 


CONTENTS.  xi 

vast  as  it  is,  is  not  so  inromprphensihlc  as  has  been  gen- 
erally supposed.  To  our  uwu  iucipieut  creations  there 
is  no  limit  in  extent  or  variety 40 

SECOND  DISCOURSE. 

MAN,  IX  THE   PPIIKRK  OF  IIIS   OWN   MORAL  NATURE,  A  SU- 
PREME CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

§  14.  A  Cognitive  Sense  inclodes  a  Moral  Sense. 

That  the  additions  to  our  knowledge  are  simple  immediate 
perceptions,  not  dependent  on  the  will,  gives  them  the 
character  of  the  phenomena  of  sensation,  and  indicates 
the  existence  of  a  corjnilice  sejise.  Some  of  these  incre- 
ments do  not  and  others  do  require  preliminary  effort. 
In  this  there  is  no  diH'erence  ])er  se,  as  to  our  perceptions 
of  the  external  and  internal.  Intuitive  perceptions  are 
distinguished  from  the  rational  by  the  preliminary  eflfort 
for  tlie  hitter.  We  distinguish  the  perceptions  of  the 
cognitive  sense  as  objective,  seeing,  hearing,  etc.,  and 
subjective  as  the  sense  of  beauty,  justice,  shame.  And 
when  right  or  wrong  is  the  subject  of  it,  it  is  the  moral 
sense 47 

§  15.  Our  Efforts  for  Internal  Change  are  always 
to  increase  ocr  knowledge. 

We  may  seek  knowledge  of  the  external  or  internal.  Its 
object  is  oftenest  to  enable  us  to  direct  our  actions  wisely 
in  the  current  affairs  of  life ;  but  may  be  for  the  pleasure 
of  the  pursuit,  or  in  the  possession.  A  higher  object  may 
be  to  permanently  increase  the  intellectual  power,  or  still 
higher,,  to  improve  the  moral  nature 52 

§  16.  The  Two  Modes  of  Seeking  Knowledge.  ThbT 
Poetic  and  the  Prosaic. 

By  observation,  we  note  the  plienomena  cognized  by  the 
senses,  and  by  reflection,  we  trace  the  relations  among 
the  ideas — the  knowledge  —  we  already  iiave  in  store, 
and  thus  obtain  new  ideas.  A  large  portion  of  our  per- 
ceptions are  primarily  but  imagery  —  jjictures  —  in  the 
mind.  In  tin's  furni  we  will  di'signate  tiicin  as  primitive 
perceptions,  or  ideals,   to   distinguish   them   from   those 


xii  CONTENTS. 

which  we  have  associated  with  words.  In  this  primitive 
form  we  cau  thiuk  of,  and  exainiuo  them  and  their  rela- 
tions, aud  a  not  uncommon  belief,  that  we  can  think  only 
in  words,  is  erroneous.  Or  we  may  substitute  words  for 
these  primitive  perceptions,  and  then  investigate  the  rela- 
tions among  the  substituted  words.  In  the  difference  in 
these  two  modes  we  find  the  fundamental  distinction  be- 
tween poetry  and  prose,  aud  also  in  the  two  cardinal 
modes  of  seeking  truth  :  the  former  being  the  ideal  or 
poetic ;  the  latter,  the  logical  or  prosaic.  The  material 
universe,  in  the  imagery  of  which  God  has  inscribed  his 
thoughts  and  conceptions,  is  the  pure  and  perfect  type  of 
the  poetic ;  while  the  prosaic  or  logical  is  very  accurately 
represented  in  the  solution  of  algebraic  equations.  The 
poetic  mode  has  the  greater  reach,  and  is  the  most  effi- 
cient truth  discovering  power.  It  is  an  essential  attribute, 
but  is  not  limited  to  men  of  genius.  In  its  least  ethereal  . 
forms  it  is  the  basis  of  common  Sense,  and  the  main  ele- 
ment of  practical  business  ability.  It  is  also  the  charac- 
teristic of  what  has  been  termed  a  woman's  reason,  giv- 
ing to  her  quick  and  clear  perceptions 53 

§  17.  One  Method  of  Increasing  the  Efficiency 
OF  THE  Intellect. 
It  is  in  the  higher  and  more  general  cultivation  of  the  po- 
etic mode,  and  a  more  systematic  and  intelligent  selection 
from  the  two  cardinal  modes  of  that  which  is  best  adapted 
to  the  subject  in  hand,  or  by  a  judicious  combination  of 
both  that  we  may  look  for  the  increase  of  intellectual 
ability.  Tlie  discovery  and  propagation  of  such  modes 
is  in  the  province  of  the  metaphysician,  and  opens  to  him 
an  elevated  sphere  of  utility 61 

§  18.  Our  Creative  Power  in  the  Formation  of  Char- 
acter AND  THE  agency  OP  HaBIT. 

It  is  in  our  moral  nature  that  our  most  ethereal  attribute 
naturally  finds  its  most  congenial  sphere  of  action.  State- 
ment of  a  mode  in  which  our  power  of  creating  and  per- 
fecting imaginary  constructions  may  be  made  practically 
available  in  tlic  construction  and  elevation  of  moral  char- 
acter.   The  ideal  constructions  supply  the  place  of  actual 


CONTENTS.  xiii 

experience,  and  in  some  respects  have  the  advantage  of 
it.  We  cannot  directly  will  chanpc  in  our  mental  afft-c- 
tions.  The  ruciirrence  of  our  spiritual  wants  is  as  certain 
as  that  of  the  physical.  As  a  man  cannot  do  moral 
wronK  in  doing  what  he  believes  to  be  right,  his  knowl- 
edge though  finite  is  infallible  as  to  what  is  morally  right 
for  him.  In  castle-buildiug  we  discard  the  external,  and 
work  from  <>ur  internal  resources,  and  may  conceive  a 
material  universe  or  a  pure  and  uolile  moral  character. 

The  persistent  effort  to  actualize  these  ideals  is  their  final 
consummation.  There  can  be  no  failure  except  the  fail- 
ure to  will,  and  mind  is  here  a  Supreme  Creative  First 
Cause. 

In  the  permanent  engr.ifting  of  these  ideals  upon  the  char- 
acter, habit  performs  a  very  important  part.  We  must 
distinguish  between  the  mere  knowledge  of  what  is  de- 
sirable and  the  effort  to  attain  it.  A  man  may  know 
that  it  is  best  to  be  pure  and  noble,  and  yet  not  only  make 
no  effort,  but  be  unwilling  to  become  so.  To  become 
good  without  one's  own  effort  is  an  impossibility  ...     63 

§  19.  Ix  Tin:  Moral  Nature  the  Effort  is  itself  the 

CONSUiMMATIOX    OF    ITS    ObJECT    AND    InTENT. 

The  virtue  is  all  in  the  effort  and  the  intent,  and  not  in  its 
success  or  failure.  If  the  efforts  are  transitory  the  moral 
goodness  will  be  equally  so 70 

§  20.  The  TJigiit  or  Wrong  op  Moral  Action  is  all 

CONCENTRATED    IN    OUR    OWN    FrEE    AcT    OF    WiLL. 

The  nature  of  the  effect  makes  no  difference  to  the  moral 
quality  of  the  effort.  The  consequences  of  one's  actions 
may  be  really  pernicious  when  his  intentions  are  virtu- 
ous, and  may  be  beneficent  when  his  designs  were  vicious. 
A  man  who  is  honest  for  gain  will  be  dishonest  if  the 
gain  thereby  is  sufficient.  Virtue  is  not  reached  till  he 
acts  from  a  sense  of  right  and  ([\\\.y,  nor  established  till 
he  values  moral  beauty  and  purity  above  all  other  posses- 
sions and  all  possible  acquisitions.  No  moral  wrong  can 
be  charged  to  a  man  for  an  event  in  which  he  had  and 
could  have  uo  agency.  There  is  no  present  moral  wrong 
either  iu  the  knowledge  or  in  the  exciting  want  now  in 


xiv  CONTENTS. 

his  mind,  nor  in  the  acquisition  of  that  knowledge  which 
he  passively  acquired.  There  is  no  moral  wrong  in  the 
recurrence  of  our  natural  wants  —  though  there  may  bo 
in  our  williug  to  gratify  them,  or  in  the  time  or  manner 
of  doing  this.  Ilcnce  the  moral  right  and  wronq  is  all 
concentrated  in  the  act  of  will  —  our  own  free  act.  A 
man  can  be  good  or  bad  only  by  his  own  agenc}' — his 
own  willing.  Through  habit  memory  performs  the  same 
office  for  action  that  it  does  for  knowledge  —  retaining 
what  is  acquired,  and  thus  leaving  the  mind  at  liberty  for 
new  acquisitions.  We  cannot  directly  will  not  to  think  of 
a  thing,  but  we  can  discard  the  thoughts  of  it  by  willing 
to  think  of  something  else,  and  can  do  the  same  as  to  a 
want.  This  especially  as  to  moral  wants.  If  any  one  of 
these  is  eradicated,  there  can  be  no  corresponding  voli- 
tion. By  thus  giving  some  of  our  internal  wants  a  pre- 
dominance we  influence  our  moral  characteristics  at 
their  source 72 

§  21.  Recital  of  some  of  the  Fokegoing  Conclusions. 

From  these  it  follows  that  man,  in  the  sphere  of  his  own 
moral  nature ;  is  not  only  a  creative,  but  a  supreme  and 
also  a  sole  creative  first  cause.  In  this  sphere  the  finite 
mind  can  will  any  possible  change  of  which  it  can  con- 
ceive, and  the  willing  in  it,  being  the  consummation  of 
the  conception,  there  is  no  change  in  it  of  which  we  can 
conceive  that  we  cannot  bring  about 79 

§  22.  Our  Physical  Wants  are  more  imperative  but 

ARE    limited    and    TEMPORARY,  WHILE    THE    SPIRIT- 
ual are  boundless  and  insatiable 81 

§  23.  Ideality  is  the  Nearest  Approach  to  Reality, 

AND    fulfills    THE    OfFICE    OF    EXPERIENCE. 

The  scenic  representations  acted  in  the  theatre  within  us 
are  the  nearest  approach  to  reality,  and  have  more  influ- 
ence than  logical  reasoning 82 

§  24.  Good  and  Evil  Influences  of  Ideality, 

Ideality  is  as  potent  in  our  spiritual  nature  as  sensation  is 
iu  our  i)h}  sical.     Our  first  creative  efforts  are  in  the  ma- 


CONTENTS.  XV 

terial  but  early  transferred  to  the  spiritual,  and  there 
quickened  by  the  inHuence  of  uuscltish  and  rumantic  pas- 
sion on  the  young  imagination.  But  this  beneficent  en- 
dowment is  liable  to  be  perverted  to  evil,  and  especially 
througli  our  ])hysical  wants,  whicli  are  made  less  incon- 
stant by  tlie  want  of!  ac(inisition.  The  power  of  ideality, 
thongli  less  nobly  exliibited,  is  more  strongly  attested  in 
its  degrading  than  in  its  elevating  influence      ....     82 

§  25.  Systematic  Moral  Training  in  the  Formation 
AND  Study  of  Ideal  Constrcctions. 

This  much  needed  to  counteract  a  social  system  based 
largely  on  s(dti.->hncss,  and  to  neutralize  the  materialistic 
comfort-seeking  proclivities  of  this  mechanical  and  com- 
mercial age.  But  ideal  constructions  liave  been  discour- 
aged and  stigmatized  as  idle  imaginings,  leading  to 
groundless  hopes  and  illusive  views  of  life.  Relieving 
these  processes  from  such  obstruction  would  be  an  im- 
portant gain,  and  might  be  supplemented  by  education 
making  ideal  constructions  a  subject  of  study.  For  this 
there  is  encouragement  in  the  fact  that  woman,  to  whose 
care  the  infant  intelligence  is  first  confitled,  is  Iw  her 
special  endowments  so  fully  equipped  for  this  work     .     .     86 

§  26.  All  Sciences  first  pursued  merely  for  Mental 
Gratification. 

Metaphysics  has  bi,en  thus  pursued  to  the  present  time. 
In  it  the  progress  from  abstract  speculation  to  practical 
utility  has  not  differed  from  that  of  the  other  sciences. 
All  liave  been  first  pursued  from  a  love  of  truth,  and  a 
curiosity  stimulated  by  opposing  mysteries,  without  ref- 
erence to  ulterior  benefit.  Metaphysics  has  thus  been 
wrought  upon  for  ages 88 

§  27.  Solution  of  Three  Problems  essential  to  the 
Practical  Utility  of  Metaphysics. 

First,  The  analysis  of  the  fundamental  distinction  be- 
tween poetry  and  prose,  and  in  it  that  of  the  two  cardinal 
modes  of  socking  truth.  —  Second,  Our  freedom  in  will- 
ing and  the  fixing  of  ninn's  status  as  an  independent  cre- 
ative power  in  the  universe.  —  Third,  the  inquiry  as  to 


xvi  CONTENTS. 

the  difference  between  instinctive  and  rational  actions, 
and  in  this  incidentally  deterniinin<j  the  natnre  and  func- 
tions of  habit,  hy  which  our  subjective  constructions  may 
be  made  permanent  formations  of  moral  character  and 
incorporated  into  our  being  as  a  second  nature.  The 
forming  of  habits  is  under  our  control,  but  requires  vig- 
ilance      89 

§  28.  Synopsis  of  Preceding  Results  and  Deductions 

FROM  them. 

Man's  supremacy  in  the  domain  of  his  own  moral  nature 
indicates  it  as  his  especial  sphere  of  action.  Ages  of 
successful  effort  in  the  material  sphere  has  prepared  the 
way  for  the  occupation  of  the  spiritual,  and  we  may  ex- 
pect that  the  advance  into  it  will  be  marked  by  the 
subliraest  efforts,  and  that  the  results  will  be  the  crowTi- 
ing  glory  of  all  utility 92 

§  29.  Argument  from  Final  Causes. 
I  have  faith  that  all  progress  in  truth  will  conduce  to  the 
happiness  and  elevation  of  man,  and  that  whatever  tends 
to  diminish  our  happiness  and  degrade  us  will  be  found 
to  be  not  true.  Influences  of  the  materialistic  doctrines 
for  which  I  see  in  them  no  compensation 95 

§  30.  Concluding  Remarks. 
By  a  constitutional  provision  our  wants,  physical  and  spirit- 
ual,  recur  without  preliminary  effort.  Our  aesthetic  tastes 
are  continually  touched  by  the  beauty  and  grandeur  of 
God's  visible  creations.  Man  is  thus  reminded  that  there 
is  within  his  own  being  an  inchoate  universe  equally 
boundless,  and  which  is  his  especial  sphere  for  the  exer- 
cise of  his  creative  powers,  requiring  his  effort  to  reduce 
it  to  order  and  to  cultivate  it  into  beauty.  Constructing 
this  universe  within  is  the  principal  if  not  the  sole  end  of 
life 97 


DISCOURSE  I. 

M/VN   A   CREATIVE   FIRST   CAUSE.^ 

§  1.  In  the  preface  to  "  Freedom  of  Mind  in 
Willing "  I  have  spoken  of  the  general  indiffer- 
ence to  metaphysical  pursuits ;  attributing  it,  in 
part,  to  the  more  easily  appreciated  discoveries  in 
physical  science,  and  their  immediate  contribu- 
tions to  our  material  comforts.  The  inventions, 
by  means  of  which  these  comforts  have  been  so 
largely  increased,  are  the  result  of  the  applica- 
tion of  the  intellect  to  the  study  of  matter.  But 
if,  as  I  have  suggested,  the  study  of  the  mind  may 
elicit  practical  modes  of  increasing  the  efficiency 
of  the  intellect,  then  this  study,  which  thus  im- 
proves that  which  achieves  aU  other  improvement 
—  which  invents  inventive  power  —  may,  even  in 
its  relation  to  the  most  materialistic  utility,  be- 
come the  first  and  most  important  factor. 

This,   however,   is    merely  incidental    to    the 
higher  purpose  of  increasing  the  mind's  power 
for  the  discovery  of  truth  generally,  to  which  it 
should  be  subordinated  and  made  subservient. 
'    1  See  Note  1. 


2  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

But  beyond  and  above  all  such  comparatively 
groveling  application  to  our  bodily  wants,  which 
philosophy  once  disdained,  —  beyond  and  above 
even  the  increase  of  intellectual  power,  —  I  hope, 
in  furtherance  of  what  I  have  heretofore  sug- 
gested, to  show  more  fully  that  the  special  field 
of  metaphysical  utility  is  in  our  moral  nature ; 
that  every  one  has  within  himself  a  domain,  as  il- 
limitable as  that  of  the  external,  in  which  to  exert 
his  energies  in  the  construction  of  a  moral  uni- 
verse ;  and  that  within  this  domain,  the  finite  in- 
telligence is  not  only  a  creative,  but  a  supreme 
creative  power,  and  that  therein,  by  the  exercise  of 
its  faculties  upon  itself,  it  may  devise  or  discover 
and  impart  new  modes  of  forming  and  moidding 
the  moral  character,  and  thus  supply  a  demand 
which,  always  important,  has  now,  by  our  prog- 
ress in  other  directions,  become  the  prominent  and 
urgent  necessity  of  our  time. 

§  2.  The  mind,  like  all  other  objects  of  its 
knowledge,  is  itself  known  only  by  its  properties. 
These,  as  directly  revealed  in  consciousness,  are 
Knowledge,  Feeling,  and  Volition.  It  knows, 
feels,  and  wills.  In  knowing  or  in  feeling  it  is 
not  active,  but  passively  perceives  and  feels.  The 
will  is  its  only  real  faculty.  By  this  alone  it 
acts.  An  act  of  will  is  simply  an  effort  of  the 
mind  —  an  effort  of  the  intelligent  being  —  to  do. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  3 

When  we  speak  of  an  effort  of  memory,  or 
imagination,  or  judginent,  we  only  mean  tliat  we 
make  effort  to  remember,  to  imagine,  or  to  judge. 
We  distinguish  the  particular  effort  by  its  object 
or  design.  But  the  effort  is  by  the  intelligent  be- 
ing, and  the  whole  intelligent  being  acting  as  a 
unit;  and  when  we  speak  of  bodily  effort  we  do 
not  mean  an  effort  made  by  the  body,  but  the 
mind's  effort  to  move  the  body ;  and  by  mental 
effort  the  mind's  effort  as  to  its  own  movement 
or  action.  The  characteristics,  then,  of  which  we 
are  conscious  in  our  own  minds,  are  a  capacity  for 
hiowledge.,  a  susceptibility  to  feeling.,  and  a  fac- 
ility of  effort  or  will.  And  such  seems  to  be  the 
constitution  of  every  intelligent  being  of  which 
we  are  cognizant.  They  all  know,  feel,  and  make 
effort. 

To  these  attributes  there  is,  as  to  each  in  itself, 
no  conceivable  limit.  Having  the  want,  and  the 
knowledge  or  idea  of  a  possible  mode,  the  effort 
—  the  trying  to  do  —  is  always  possible.  Nor 
can  we  conceive  of  there  being  in  the  nature  of 
the  phenomena  any  limit  to  our  susceptibility  to 
an  additional  sensation  or  emotion,  or  that  our 
capacity  for  knowledge  should  be  so  filled  that 
there  would  be  no  room  for  more.  The  internal 
capacity  is  as  unlimited  as  external  space. 

§  3.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  being  might  have 


4  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

knowledge  only;  but  it  could  not  have  feeling 
without  knowing  it.  It  might  with  knowledge 
have  feeling,  and  enjoy  or  suffer  without  will  — 
without  any  faculty  or  j)ower  by  which  it  could 
change,  or  even  try  to  change,  its  states  of  enjoy- 
ment or  suffering,  however  well  it  might  know 
that  such  change  would  be  beneficial,  or  however 
decidedly  it  might  dioose  or  ardently  desire  such 
change. 

It  may  seem  to  be  conceivable  that  a  being 
might  have  wiU  without  knowledge  or  feeling, 
that  it  might  have  the  faculty  and  ability  to  try  to 
do,  and  even  the  power  to  do ;  but  such  faculty 
would  be  dormant,  and  such  power  would  be 
merely  potential.  Without  feeling  there  would 
be  no  occasion,  no  inducement,  no  purpose,  or  mo- 
tive for  its  exercise,  and  without  knowledge  no 
means  of  knowing  or  of  directing  its  effort  to  an 
object. 

If  it  be  conceivable  that  such  being  covdd  have 
a  potential  faculty  of  action,  its  tendency  to  act 
must  be  equal  in  aU  directions,  and  aU  tendency 
to  action  would  be  neutralized.  An  unintelligent 
being  cannot  be  self  active. 

Our  sensations  and  emotions  are  not  dependent 
upon  our  will.  We  can  neither  hear  nor  avoid 
hearing  the  sound  of  cannon  by  an  act  of  will. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  5 

By  effort,  we  may  bring  about  the  conditions  pre- 
cedent to  a  particular  sensation  or  emotion ;  but 
whether  they  are  brought  about  by  our  own  act  or 
by  other  cause  makes  no  difference  to  the  effect. 

Nor  is  our  knowledge  subject  to  our  will.  We 
may,  by  effort,  bring  about  the  conditions  essen- 
tial to  our  luiowing.  We  can  remove  an  external 
obstruction  to  sight,  so  as  to  see  what  was  hidden 
by  it.  And  we  can  also  by  effort  call  up  and  ar- 
range our  ideas  so  that  some  new  truth  will  be- 
come apparent;  but  in  neither  case  can  we  will 
what  we  shall  perceive. 

But  the  truth  may  be,  and  often  is,  apparent 
without  any  prior  effort,  by  merely  observing 
things  as  they  happen  to  be.  But  whatever  pre- 
liminary efforts  we  may  make  to  bring  about  the 
prerequisite  conditions  to  our  kno^ang,  the  ad- 
ditions to  our  knowledge  are  always  simple  inv- 
mediate  mental  perceptions.^  separable  from  the 
effort,  and  in  its  essence  as  independent  of  it  as 
the  smell  of  musk  or  brimstone  is  of  the  move- 
ment of  the  hand  which  brings  it  to  the  nose. 

Feeling  (i.  e.,  sensation  and  emotion)  is  an  in- 
centive to  action,  but  is  not  itseK  active. 

Knowledge  enables  us  to  direct  our  efforts,  but 
is  itself  passive. 

Through   its  only  active  faculty  of   will  —  its 


6  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

effort  —  the  intelligent  being  strives  to  produce 
chcmge,  of  wliich,  when  effected,  it  is  the  cause.^ 

Our  own  individual  effort  is  the  only  cause  of 
which  we  are  directly  conscious,  but  we  are  di- 
rectly conscious  of  changes  in  our  own  sensations, 
for  some  of  which  we  have  and  others  we  have 
not  made  effort.  From  some  of  these  sensations 
we  infer  objective  material  changes,  some  of  which 
we  have  and  others  we  have  not  caused.  From 
some  of  these  we  also  infer  the  existence  of  other 
intelligent  beings,  like  ourselves,  to  whose  action 
we  attribute  many  of  these  changes  in  our  sensa- 
tional or  in  objective  phenomena,  which  we  have 
not  ourselves  produced.  But  as  some  of  these 
changes  require  a  power  beyond  any  indicated  in 
ourselves  or  in  our  fellow-beings,  we  infer  the  ex- 
istence of  a  superior  intelligent  power  adequate 
to  their  production.  We  thus  come  to  know  our- 
selves, our  fellow-beings,  and  God  as  cause. 

§  4.  Of  the  existence  of  matter  or  of  its  prop- 
erties we  are  not  directly  conscious.  We  know 
nothing  of  it  except  by  the  sensations  which  we 
impute  to  its  agency,  and  as  these  sensations  can 
exist  in  the  mind  in  the  absence  of  the  external 
material  forms  or  forces  to  vvliich  Ave  impute 
them,  e.  g.,  in  dreams,  the  sensations  are  not  con- 

1  See  Note  2. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  7 

elusive  evidence  of  any  such  external  existence. 
All  our  sensations  which  we  attribute  to  matter 
are  as  fully  accounted  for  by  the  hypothesis  that 
they  are  the  thought,  the  imagery  of  the  mind  of 
God  directly  imparted  or  made  palpable  to  our 
finite  minds,  as  by  that  of  a  distinct  external 
substance  in  which  He  has  embodied  this  thought 
and  imagery. 

In  either  case  matter  is  but  the  expression  of 
his  thoughts  and  conceptions.  In  either  case,  too, 
it  is  to  us  equally  real.,  the  sensations  by  which 
alone  we  apprehend  these  to  us  external  phenom- 
ena being  the  same. 

In  either  case,  too,  spirit  and  matter  are  still 
antithetically  distinguished,  as  that  which  sees 
and  that  which  is  seen  :  the  one  having  the  prop- 
erties of  knowledge,  feeling,  and  volition,  while 
the  other  is  unintelligent,  senseless,  and  inert. 

The  hyjjothesis  that  the  material  phenomena 
are  but  the  thoughts  and  imagery  of  the  mind  of 
God  immediately  impressed  upon  us  is  the  more 
simple  of  the  two,  and  makes  creative  attributes 
more  nearly  accord  with  powers  which  we  are 
ourselves  conscious  of  exercising. 

We  can  ourselves  by  effort  create  such  imagery, 
and  to  some  extent  make  it  diu'able  and  palpable 
to  others. 


8  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

We,  however,  fiiid  no  rudiment  o£  force  or  caus- 
ative energy  in  these  creations  of  our  own.  We 
can  no  more  attribute  inherent  power  to  them 
than  we  can  to  an  image  in  a  mirror,  and  there 
seems  no  reason  to  suppose  that  any  increase  of 
power  in  the  creator  of  such  imagery  could  imbue 
it  with  causative  energy. 

On  the  other  hand,  if  the  existence  of  matter 
as  a  distinct,  independent,  objective  entity  is  con- 
ceded, it  may  still  be  urged  that  it  can,  within 
itself,  have  no  causative  power.  If  wholly  quies- 
cent it  could  exert  no  power  to  change  itseK,  for 
all  change  in  matter  is  by  its  motion  in  masses  or 
in  atoms ;  and  matter  cannot  move  itself. 

But  it  does  not  appear  to  be  claimed  that  mat- 
ter except  when  in  motion  can  be  regarded  as  a 
power.  It  is  inert  and  has  no  self -active  power  by 
which  it  can  begin  motion  in  itself  without  being 
first  acted  upon,  nor  can  it  determine  the  direction 
of  its  own  motion.  This  beginning  and  determi- 
nation must  therefore  be  by  the  only  other  possible 
cause  —  by  intelligent  being  —  and  that  which 
thus  begins  and  directs  the  motion  is  properly  the 
cause  of  all  the  effects  which  follow,  and  matter  is 
only  an  inert  instrument  which  intelligence  uses 
to  produce  these  effects. 

Even  if  it  coidd  be  endowed  with  power  to  move 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  9 

it  coiilcl  have  no  inducement,  no  tendency,  or  means 
to  determine  its  motion  in  one  direction  rather 
than  another ;  and  a  tendency  or  power  of  self- 
movement  which  is  equal  in  all  directions  is  a 
nullity. 

Its  quiescent  existence  might  be  a  fact  perceived 
by  intelligent  beings  as  among  the  conditions  for 
them  to  act  upon,  but  any  change  thus  wrought 
in  such  being  is  the  result  of  its  own  perception, 
or  its  own  action  on  the  quiescent  matter.  Clay 
may  be  moulded  ;  it  cannot  mould. 

It  may,  however,  be  urged  that  both  the  argu- 
ments thus  drawn  from  the  difficulty  of  conceiving 
of  the  creation  of  matter  as  a  distinct  entity,  and 
from  the  necessity  of  motion,  which  it  cannot  be- 
gin, to  its  causal  power,  may  be  met  by  the  hypoth- 
esis that  matter  never  was  created,  but  has  always 
existed,  and  that  its  condition  has  ever  been  that 
of  motion;  and  that  this  involves  no  more  diffi- 
culty than  the  hypothesis  that  intelligence  with 
its  activity  has  had  no  beginning. 

On  this  we  would  observe,  as  germane  to  the 
whole  question  of  intelligent  or  material  causa- 
tion, that  to  assume  the  existence  of  both  when 
one  is  sufficient  is  unphilosophical ;  and  that  as  we 
are  directly  conscious  of  the  spiritual  phenomena, 
and  only  iiifer  the  material  from  our  sensations, 


10  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

those  who  set  up  the  material  against  or  to  the 
exclusion  of  the  spiritual  are  impeaching  testi- 
mony by  testimony  less  reliable  than  that  wliich 
they  impeach.  And,  further,  it  seems  inconceiv- 
able that  matter  should  be  the  cause  of  intelli- 
gence and  its  phenomena  —  that  what  does  not 
itself  know  should  create  a  i30wer  to  know  — 
while,  as  already  shown,  it  is  quite  conceivable 
that  intelligence  may  create  all  that  we  know  of 
matter  and  its  phenomena.  These  considerations 
seem  to  furnish  sufficient  reason  for  discarding 
the  hypothesis  of  causal  power  in  matter. 

But  whether  matter,  if  it  exist,  can,  even  if  in 
motion,  be  a  force,  power,  or  cause,  still  dej^ends 
on  another  question,  viz..  Is  the  tendency  of  a 
body  in  motion  to  continue  to  move,  or  to  stop 
when  the  moving  power  ceases  to  act  upon  it?  In 
other  words,  is  the  application  of  extrinsic  power 
required  to  keep  it  in  motion,  or  is  such  applica- 
tion required  to  stop  it  ?  The  problem  may  be 
thus  stated.  Suppose  all  existence  was  comprised 
in  one  power  and  one  ball,  and  that  this  power 
was  directly  moving  that  baU.  If  this  power  was 
instantaneously  annihilated,  woidd  the  ball  con- 
tinue to  move  or  woidd  it  stop  ? 

If  in  virtue  of  being  in  motion  it  has  power,  it 
still  could  not  select  or  vary  its  action  or  its  conse- 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  11 

quences,  and  all  its  effects  must  be  of  necessity. 
For  instance,  in  the  collision  of  one  body  with 
another,  as  both  cannot  occupy  the  same  space, 
some  effect  must  result.  All  the  effects  of  unin- 
telligent cause  must  be  from  some  like  necessity. 
In  this  respect  the  material  hypothesis  would  have 
the  advantage,  there  being  no  apparent  connection 
of  necessity  between  intelligent  effort  and  its  ob- 
jective sequences.  If  matter  has  such  tendency 
to  continue  its  motion,  then  it  could  be  used  by  in- 
telligent power  as  an  instrument  to  extend  the 
ibffects  of  its  own  action  in  time  and  space.  But 
if  its  tendency  is  to  stop,  then  it  can  have  in  itself 
no  power  or  force  whatever,  and  could  not  even 
be  an  instrument  for  thus  extending  the  effects  of 
the  power  that  put  it  in  motion.  I  confess  myself 
unable  to  make  or  find  any  solution  to  this  radical 
question,  but  until  it  is  settled  I  do  not  see  how 
matter,  though  in  motion,  can  properly  be  re- 
garded as  a  force,  or  even  as  a  conserver  of  force 
imparted  to  it  by  other  power. 

Nor  could  intelligent  power  make  matter  a  self- 
active  cause,  capable  of  beginning  to  move,  of  di- 
recting its  movements,  and  so  conforming  them  to 
varying  circumstances  and  conditions  as  to  pro- 
duce a  particular  effect  at  a  particular  time,  b}^ 
impressing  upon  or  imbuing  it  with  laws  for  its 


12  MAN  A    CREATIVE   FIRST  CAUSE. 

own  government :  for  to  be  thus  governed  by  law 
presupposes  intelligence  on  the  part  of  the  gov- 
erned ;  such  government  of  that  which  has  no 
intelligence  involves  a  contradiction  which  power 
cannot  reconcile.  All  that  can  properly  be  im- 
plied when  we  refer  an  event  to  "  the  nature  of 
things,"  or  to  the  "laws  of  nature,"  as  its  cause 
is  that  the  intelligence  which  causes  these  events 
acts  uniforml}'.  In  investigating  the  laws  of  na- 
ture we  but  seek  to  learn  the  uniform  modes  of 
God's  action. 

§  5.  A  very  popular  notion  of  cause,  adopted 
by  many  eminent  philosophers,  is  that  all  events 
or  successive  j^henomena  are  connected  in  a  chain 
of  which  each  successive  link  is  the  effect  of  all 
that  preceded  it.  These  also  hold,  as  an  essential 
adjunct  to  their  theory,  that  the  same  causes  nec- 
essarily produce  the  same  effect,  and  hence  that 
each  of  these  successive  events  is  necessitated  by 
those  which  precede  it.  J.  Stuart  Mill,  one  of 
the  able  advocates  of  these  views,  says  :  ^  — 

"  The  real  cause  is  the  whole  of  these  antece- 
dents ;  "  and  again,  "  The  cause  ...  is  the  sum 
total  of  the  conditions  positive  and  negative  taken 
together;  the  whole  of  the  contingencies,  which 
being  realized  the  consequent  invariably  follows." 

1  System  of  Logic,  Book  3d,  Chap.  5,  §  3. 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  13 

Ou  these  and  other  similar  positions  of  Mill, 
and  the  materialistic  school  generally,  I  will  re- 
mark that  tliey  do  not  distinguish  between  those 
antecedents  which  are  merely  passive  conditions 
to  be  acted  upon  and  changed  and  the  active 
agents  which  act  upon  and  change  them ;  do  not 
distinguish  what  jjroduces  from  what  merely  ^jre- 
cedes  change.  Life  is  a  prerequisite  to  death,  but 
cannot  properly  be  regarded  as  a  cause  of  it. 

Again,  any  cause  always  acts  upon  a  wholly 
void  and  therefore  homogeneous  future,  and  if  the 
cause  is  the  v)hole  of  the  antecedents,  then,  as 
at  each  instant  the  whole  of  the  antecedents  is 
everywhere  the  same,  the  effect  would  everywhere 
be  the  same;  and  throughout  the  universe  there 
coidd  be  only  one  and  the  same  effect  at  the  same 
time.^ 

It  is  also  obvious  that  on  this  theory  of  the 
"  whole  antecedents "  there  can  be  no  possible 
application  of  the  law  of  uniformity,  that  "the 
same  causes  produce  the  same  effects  ;  "  for  the 
moment  the  cause  —  the  whole  of  the  antece- 
dents —  has  once  acted,  its  action  and  its  effect 
are  added  to  and  permanently  change  it,  and  the 

1  For  a  fuller  statement  of  this  argument  sec  Letters  to  Mill 
on  Causation  and  Freedom  in  Willing,  p.  56;  and  the  first  of 
these  letters  as  to  cause  generally. 


14  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

same  cause  can  never  act  a  second  time.  The 
advocates  of  this  theory,  that  "  the  whole  antece- 
dents are  the  cause,"  and  of  the  asserted  law  that 
"  the  same  causes  must  produce  the  same  effects," 
also  very  generally  hold  that  we  get  all  our  knowl- 
edge from  experience.  But  it  is  clear  that  if  the 
theory  is  true  there  can  be  no  experience  as  to  the 
law,  and  hence,  on  their  theory,  no  knowledge  to 
justify  them  in  asserting  it. 

The  foregoing  results  warrant  the  assertion 
that  in  the  present  condition  of  our  knowledge 
the  only  causative  power  which  we  can  be  said  to 
know,  or  which  we  can  properly  recognize,  is  that 
of  intelligent  being  in  action,  and  that  all  the 
effects,  and  especially  all  the  uniform  changes  in 
matter,  which  begin  to  be,  must  be  attributed  to 
such  action,  and  of  course  such  of  them  as  are 
not  caused  by  the  inferior  must  be  referred  to  the 
action  of  the  Supreme  Intelligence  ;  that,  how- 
ever difficult  the  conception,  there  seems  to  be  no 
way  to  avoid  the  necessity  of  this  constant  exer- 
cise of  creative  energy  to  begin  change,  and  pro- 
duce uniformity  in  the  results,  or  to  escape  the 
conclusion  that  every  particle  that  floats  in  the 
breeze  or  undulates  in  the  wave,  every  atom  that 
changes  its  position  in  the  uniform  modes  of  elec- 
trical  attraction   and   repulsion   or   of   chemical 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIIiST  CAUSE.  15 

affinities,  is  moved,  not  by  the  energizing-,  but 
by  the  energetic  will  of  an  Oninipreseut  Intelli- 
gence.^ 

§  G.  The  question  of  our  freedom  in  willing  has 
for  ages  been  a  prominent  subject  of  philosophical 
inquiry  and  discussion,  in  which  much  of  the  di- 
versity in  opinions  and  results  seems  to  have 
arisen  from  erroneous  notions  and  defective  defi- 
nitions of  will,  and  of  freedom  as  applicable  to 
willing. 

Effort  is  wholly  unique.  Through  the  whole 
range  of  our  ideas  there  is  nothing  resembling  it 
—  nothing  with  which  there  would  seem  to  be 
any  danger  of  confounding  it,  or  of  mistaking  it. 
And  yet,  as  to  the  noun,  will,  which  I  regard  as 
merely  a  name  for  our  faculty  to  make  effort  — 
to  try  to  do  —  there  is  much  confusion,  ambigaiity, 
and  error. 

In  the  first  place,  the  will  has  sometimes  been 
treated  as  a  distinct  entity.  This  finds  expression 
in  the  phrase,  freedom  of  the  will,  and  opens  the 
way  for  the  argument  that  if  this  distinct  entity 
can  be  controlled  by  some  power  extraneous  to  it, 
even  though  by  the  being  of  which  it  is  an  attrib- 
ute, then  the  rinll  is  not  free. 

Such   reasoning  is  wholly  precluded  when  we 

1  See  Note  3. 


16  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

regard  the  will  as  simply  the  faculty  or  ability  of 
the  mind  to  make  effort,  and  an  act  of  will  as 
simply  an  effort  of  the  mind  to  do,  and  in  accord 
with  this  \dew,  speak  of  the  freedom  of  the  mind 
in  willing,  instead  of  the  freedom  of  the  vnll. 
Edwards,  in  his  celebrated  argument  for  neces- 
sity, defines  will  to  be  "  that  hy  which  the  mind 
chooses  anything,^''  and  says  "  an  act  of  the  will 
is  the  same  as  an  act  of  choosing  or  choice.''^ 

In  my  view  the  will  is  that  by  which  the  mind 
does  any  and  every  thing  that  it  does  at  all,  or 
in  the  accomplishing  of  which  it  has  any  active 
agency.  Limiting  its  function  to  the  phenomena 
of  choice  seems  to  me  peculiarly  unfortunate. 
Our  choice  is  merely  the  knowledge  that  one  of 
two  or  more  things  suits  us  best ;  and,  as  we  have 
just  shown,  knowledge  cannot  be  determined  by 
the  will.  We  may,  as  in  other  cases,  by  effort 
—  by  comparing  the  respective  advantages  of  the 
several  objects  of  choice  —  bring  about  the  con- 
ditions essential  to  our  knowing  which  suits  us 
best.  The  object  of  the  comparative  act  is  to  get 
this  knowledge ;  but  the  knowledge  as  to  what 
suits  us  best  —  the  choice  —  is  itself  a  fact  found, 
not  made  or  done  by  us.  It  is  an  immediate  per- 
ception to  which  the  previous  efforts,  comparative 
or  otherwise,  may  have  been  necessary. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  17 

Edwards  also  says,  "  The  obvious  meaning  of 
the  word  freedom,  in  common  speech,  is  power 
or  opportunity  of  doing  as  one  loills."  But  as 
applied  to  willing  —  the  willing  being  then  the 
doing  —  this  is  merely  saying  that  freedom  is  the 
power  to  do  as  one  does,  or  to  will  as  one  wills, 
or,  if  the  doing  (as  we  will)  applies  to  the  reali- 
zation of  the  object  of  our  effort,  then  it  makes 
our  freedom  in  making  the  effort  depend  on  the 
subsequent  event,  which  is  absurd.  It  makes 
our  freedom  to  try  to  do,  dependent  on  our 
power  to  do.  But  we  may  freely  make  effort  — 
try  —  to  do,  what  the  event  proves  we  have  not 
power  to  do. 

In  this  popular  use  of  the  word  freedom,  it  ap- 
plies only  to  the  doing,  which  comes  after  the 
willing,  and  is  but  a  synonym  for  power.  Free- 
dom in  its  more  comprehensive  sense,  and  as  ap- 
plied to  intelligent  being,  is  simply  SELF-CON- 
TROL. Freedom  in  willing  does  not  imply  that 
the  mind's  effort  is  not  controlled  and  directed, 
but  that  it  is  controlled  and  directed  by  the  being 
that  makes  the  effort,  and  is  not  controlled  or 
coerced  by  extraneous  power. 

The  consequences  of  these  defective  definitions 
of  will  and  freedom  upon  the  argument  are  obvi- 
ous; e.  g.,  Edwards  makes  choice  and  preference 
2 


18  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

identical,  and  also  says,  "  to  loill  and  to  choose  are 
the  same  thing."  It  will  be  generally  admitted 
that  our  choice  as  mere  preference  is  not  a  matter 
which  we  can  control,  that  we  cannot,  j;er  se,  pre- 
fer pain  to  pleasure,  and  hence  are  not  free  in 
choosing ;  and  then  on  Edward's  assumption  that 
choosing  is  the  same  as  willing,  he  logically  infers 
that  we  are  not  free  in  willing. 

If  we  may  properly  define  will  as  but  a  faculty 
to  make  effort,  and  an  act  of  will  as  simjily  an 
effort,  and  discard  the  assumption  that  will  and 
choice  are  the  same,  these  arguments  for  necessity 
are  eliminated.  Leaving  for  the  present  the  con- 
sideration of  other  arguments  for  necessity,  we 
will  turn  to  some  of  the  sequences  of  the  fore- 
going premises. 

And  first,  it  is  evident  that  no  power  can 
change  the  past,  and  that  the  object  of  every  in- 
telligent effort  must  be  to  make  tlie  future  differ- 
ent  from  what  but  for  such  effort  it  would  be. 

This  is  the  only  conceivable  motive  to  effort. 
Now,  intelligent  being,  constituted  as  before 
stated,  has  through  its  feelings  an  inducement  to 
make  efforts  to  so  mould  the  future  as  to  obtain 
an  increase  of  those  feelings  which  are  pleasura- 
ble and  avoid  or  lessen  those  which  are  painful ; 
and  by  means  of  its  knowledge  it  can  distinguish 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  19 

and  judge,  more  or  less  wisely,  between  these  feel- 
ings, and  also  determine  by  what  efforts  it  will 
seek  to  thus  mould  the  future. 

Such  a  being  is  in  itself  sclf-aetive,  requiring 
no  extrinsic  agency  to  put  it  in  action,  or  to  sus- 
tain or  direct  its  activity.  How  such  a  being 
came  to  be,  whether  in  some  inconceivable  way 
it  sprang  into  existence  from  nothing,  or  in  some 
manner  equally  mysterious  has  been  evolved  from 
matter  or  other  preexisting  substance  or  essence, 
the  genesis  of  which  is  no  less  inscrutable,  is  not 
material.  A  being  so  constituted  has  all  the  ele- 
ments of  self-activity. 

Supposing  it  to  have  just  come  into  existence, 
with  no  other  coexisting  power  in  action,  it  could, 
on  feeling  some  want  and  knowing  some  mode  of 
effort  by  which  to  gratify  its  want,  immediately 
make  the  effort ;  e.  g.,  in  the  midst  of  a  universal 
passivity,  a  being  thus  constituted  could  relieve 
its  hunger  by  plucking  and  eating  the  fruit  at 
hand,  and  such  effort,  in  the  absence  of  all  other 
power,  would  of  necessity  be  self-controlled  and 
directed,  and  therefore  the  free  effort  or  willino; 
of  the  being  that  put  it  forth.  In  the  passive 
and  inert  conditions  the  intelligent  being  per- 
ceives a  reason  for  acting,  and  for  acting  in  a 
particular  way  ;  but  such  acting  suggested  by  and 


20  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE. 

conformed  to  its  own  perception,  wliicli  is  wholly 
in  itself,  is  very  different  from  an  action  coerced 
by  or  directed  by  an  extrinsic  power,  and  this  dif- 
ference gives  to  the  former  the  distinguishing 
characteristic  of  freedom,  i.  e.,  self-control.  In- 
telligent effort,  then,  and  there  is  no  other,  thus 
springs  directly  from  an  internal  perception  of  a 
reason.  In  this  reason  it  has  its  genesis,  and  is 
not  dependent  on  the  prior  action  of  any  extrinsic 
power  or  cause. 

But  further,  if  there  were  other  coexistins:  con- 
ative  beings  or  powers,  we  know  of  no  mode  in 
which  the  willing  of  one  being  can  be  directly 
changed  by  the  willing  of  another  or  by  any 
other  extrinsic  power  whatever.  The  Avilling  so 
controlled  would  be  the  willing  of  this  other  being 
or  power,  and  not  that  of  the  being  in  which  it 
is  manifested. 

But  a  constrained  or  coerced  willing,  a  willing 
which  is  not  free,  is  not  even  conceivable.  The 
idea  is  so  incongruous,  that  any  attempt  to  ex- 
press it  results  in  the  solecism  of  our  willing  when 
we  are  not  willing. 

In  conformity  with  these  \aews  we  find  the  fact 
to  be,  that  whenever  v/e  would  influence  the  will- 
ing of  another,  we  always  try  to  do  it  by  changing 
his  knowledge.     We  may  seek  to  do  this  by  sim- 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  21 

pie  presentation  of  existing  facts,  or  by  argument 
upon  them ;  or  we  may  exert  ourselves  to  change 
the  facts,  —  the  conditions  upon  which  he  is  to 
act;  e.  g.,  we  may  interjiose  insuperable  obsta- 
cles to  his  intended  action,  or  we  may  directly 
produce  or  change  the  feelings  which  prompt  Ms 
action.  But  as  any  such  actual  change  of  the 
conditions  is  wholly  ineffective  till  it  makes  a  part 
of  his  laiowledge,  these  apparently  two  modes  arc 
really  only  one,  and  it  comes  to  this,  that  our 
only  mode  of  influencing  the  willing  of  another  is 
to  change  the  knowledge  by  which  he  controls  and 
directs  his  own  willing ;  and  it  is  evident  that  this 
mode  is  effective  only  upon  the  condition  that 
this  other  does  direct  and  control  his  own  willino- 
and  conforms  it  to  his  own  knowledge. 

It  would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  conform- 
ing of  the  act  of  will  to  the  knowledge  of  the  be- 
ing that  wills  is  by  an  extrinsic  j)ower. 

It  comes,  then,  to  this,  that  the  only  conceiva- 
ble mode  of  influencing  the  will  of  another  is  by 
changing  his  knowledge,  and  that  this  mode  is 
wdiolly  unavailing  if  this  other  does  not  direct  his 
own  action  by  means  of  his  own  knowledge,  i.  e., 
if  he  does  not  will  freely. 

From  these  premises  it  follows  that  our  willing 
not  only  may  be,  but  must  be  free.     From  these, 


22  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

too,  it  follows  that  every  being  that  wills  is  a  crea- 
tive first  cause,  an  independent  power  in  the  uni- 
verse, freely  exerting  its  individual  energies  to 
make  the  future  different  from  what  it  otherwise 
would  be. 

The  creation  of  this  future,  for  each  successive 
moment,  is  the  composite  result  of  the  efforts  of 
every  being  that  wills.  Whatever  its  grade  of 
intelligence,  if  ifc  makes  successful  effort  to  pro- 
duce change,  it  so  far  acts  as  an  originating  crea- 
tive cause  in  producing  the  future. 

Again,  as  every  intelligent  being  will  conform 
its  action  to  the  existing  conditions  to  be  acted 
upon,  the  change  in  these  conditions  which  is  ef- 
fected even  by  the  lowest  order  may  affect  the  ac- 
tion of  the  highest.  Each  individual  acts  in  ref- 
erence to  his  prophetic  anticipations  of  what  the 
future  will  be  without  his  action,  and  what  the 
effects  of  his  action  upon  it  will  be,  including 
in  these  effects  the  consequent  changes  in  the 
knowledge  and  action  of  others. 

This  i7iterde])endenGe  of  the  action  of  each 
upon  that  of  others  without  interference  with  the 
freedom  of  any  may  be  illustrated  by  the  game 
of  chess,  in  which  each  of  the  j^layers  alternately 
makes  new  conditions,  new  combinations,  for  the 
free  action  of  the  other,  and  this  each  in  turn  does 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  23 

with  reference  to  the  moves  which  may  follow. 
They  could  so  play  if  there  were  no  other  power 
in  existence,  and  each  was  wholly  passive  while  the 
other  was  determining  his  move,  which  in  such 
case  must  be  wholly  determined  and  controlled  by 
the  party  moving,  and  hence  would  be  his  free 
act. 

This  equal  and  perfect  freedom  of  all  does  not 
imj)air  the  sovereignty  of  the  Supreme  Intelli- 
gence. 

Edwards  argues  that  if  the  Supreme  Intelli- 
gence did  not  foreknow  human  volitions  he  would 
be  continually  liable  to  be  frustrated  in  his  plans. 
But  Omniscience  could  at  once  perceive  what  ac- 
tion was  most  wise,  or,  even  if  prevision  was  es- 
sential, could  search  out  and  be  prepared  for  every 
possible  contingency.  It  is  conceivable  that  a  man 
could  do  this  in  the  game  of  chess,  and  there  are 
games  which,  though  inexplicable  to  the  uniniti- 
ated, may  practically  be  so  investigated  that  the 
best  move  in  every  possible  contingency  wall  be 
ascertained,  and,  in  which,  with  the  advantage  as 
to  the  first  move,  success  will  be  cei^tain  to  one 
having  this  superior  knowledge,  though  he  may 
not  foreknow  a  single  move  of  his  opponent. 

§  7.  Tlie  phenomena  of  instinct  have  been  very 
generally  deemed  exceptional.    Oui'  own  conscious 


24  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

agency  in  them  is  so  slight  that  it  escapes  ordi- 
nary observation.  1 

The  well  ascertained  fact  that  animals  at  their 
birth  perform  instinctive  actions,  without  previous 
instruction  or  experience,  furnishes  a  clue  to  the 
solution  which  brings  these  phenomena  into  har- 
mony with  all  other  voluntary  actions.  It  indi- 
cates not  that  the  loill,  the  voluntary  effort  is 
absent,  but  that  the  knowledge  by  which  we  di- 
rect it  is  innate. 

In  every  intelligent  conative  being  the  knowl- 
edge that  by  effort  it  can  move  its  muscles  must 
be  innate.  There  is  no  conceivable  way  in  which 
the  being  could  itself  acquire  this  knowledge.  No 
movement  of  its  own  muscles,  without  self  effort, 
could  suggest  the  idea,  and  it  would  never  dis- 
cover any  connection  between  the  movement  of 
the  muscles  of  another  and  effort.  No  such  ex- 
perience or  observation  of  the  phenomena  of  mus- 
cular movement  has  any  tendency  to  elicit  or  sug- 
gest the  idea  of  effort. 

But,  so  far  as  our  observation  goes,  every  ani- 
mal, man  included,  is  born  with  this  and  some  ad- 
ditional knowledge  which  is  essential  to  the  pres- 
ervation of  its  life.  The  kid  the  moment  it  is 
born   can    rise  upon  its  feet  and   go  directly  to 

1  See  Note  4. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  2." 


SO 


the  source  of  food  which  its  mother  supplies, 
and  it  or  the  human  infant  would  die  of  hunger 
before  it  could  empirically  learn  the  complicated 
muscular  movements  and  the  order  of  their  suc- 
cession which  are  required  to  avail  itseK  of  its 
food. 

If  there  is  any  self  activity  prior  to  birth,  it 
still  more  strongly  indicates  that  the  knowledge 
of  some  of  the  modes  by  which  we  subsequently 
act  is  innate. 

In  all  cases  requiring  more  than  one  muscidar 
movement,  we  must  will  such  movements  in  a 
certain  order.  It  would  be  in  vain  to  make  the 
muscular  movements  by  which  we  swallow,  before 
the  food  was  in  the  mouth.  There  must  be  a  plan 
of  action.  If  no  such  ^?/fm  is  already  a  part  of 
our  knowledge,  we  must  devise  one.  Having  such 
plan  in  our  mind,  we  at  once  proceed  to  execute  it 
by  the  appropriate  efforts.  In  the  rational  action 
we  ourselves  devise  the  plan.  In  the  instinctive 
we  work  by  a  plan  we  found  ready  formed,  innate 
in  the  mind. 

When  we  have  devised  the  plan  of  I'ational  ac- 
tion, and  can  remember  the  successive  steps,  and 
apply  it  by  rote  without  reference  to  the  ra- 
tionale, it  becomes  a  jjlan  ready  formed  in  the 
mind^  and  the  action  becomes  habitual.     In  such 


26  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

action  tlie  process  is  precisely  the  same  as  in  tlie 
instinctive.  Tlie  popular  consciousness  of  this 
similarity  finds  exj^ression  in  the  common  adage, 
"  Habit  is  second  nature." 

In  both  cases  we  act  from  a  plan  ready  formed 
in  the  mind  which  we  apply  without  any  pres- 
ent labor  in  constructing-  it ;  and  without  the 
premeditation  and  delil)eration  required  in  this 
process. 

The  rational,  the  instinctive,  and  the  habitual 
actions,  then,  aJ  come  under  our  general  formula, 
and  are  all  efforts  of  a  conative  being,  incited  hy 
its  want  and  directed  hy  its  knowledge  to  the  end 
sought. 

In  our  rational  actions  we  have  obtained  the 
knowledge  of  the  mode  or  plan  of  action  by  our 
own  efforts.  In  the  instinctive,  we  found  it  ready 
made  in  the  mind  without  effort  of  our  own. 

In  the  habitual,  the  plan,  though  we  may  have 
originally  formed  it  ourselves,  has  become  so  fixed 
in  the  memory  that  for  all  subsequent  action  it  be- 
comes a  plan  ready  formed  in  the  mind,  requiring 
no  new  effort  to  reconstruct  it. 

In  all  this  it  is  the  being  directing  its  effort  to 
the  end  desired  by  means  of  its  knowledge. 

In  the  execution  of  this  plan,  it  is  obvious  that 
the  mode  in  which  we  get  the  knowledge  of  it 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  27 

can  make  no  difference  as  to  the  process  by  wliieli 
■\ve  execute  it ;  and  lience  the  difference  between 
instinctive  and  rational  actions  has  been  vainly 
sought  in  the  actions  themselves. 

There  is  no  difference  in  the  actions,  nor  in  the 
knowledge  itself,  nor  in  the  application  of  tlie 
knowledge  to  direct  our  efforts,  but  the  distinc- 
tion is  a  step  farther  back,  in  the  mode  in  which 
we  become  possessed  of  the  knowledge  we  thus 
apply. 

As,  in  the  rational  actions,  the  main  labor  and 
difficulty,  that  which  tasks  our  ability,  is  the  form- 
ing of  the  plan  of  action,  the  fact  that  in  the  in- 
stinctive action  this  plan  is  ready  formed  in  the 
mind  accounts  for  the  spontaneity,  the  absence  of 
deliberation,  which  is  one  of  the  most  marked  fea- 
tures of  instinctive  actions,  and  the  very  little 
which  is  left  for  us  to  do  causes  us  to  overlook  oiu' 
own  agency  and  to  refer  such  actions  to  an  extrin- 
sic power,  and  hence  to  regard  them  as  not  self- 
controlled  and  not  free.  This  mistake  in  ignoring 
our  own  agency  also  opens  the  way  for  the  further 
error  that  instinctive  actions  are  purely  mechan- 
ical, which  many  philosophers  of  great  reputation 
have  asserted.  But  mechanism  is  not  in  itself 
power.  It  is  only  a  means  by  which  power  is  ap- 
plied. 


28  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

In  regard  to  those  habitual  actions  which  we  do 
by  memory  of  i>lans  of  rational  actions,  if  we 
should  forget  that  the  plans  for  them  were  origi- 
nally formed  by  our  own  efforts  we  should  know 
no  difference  between  them  and  the  instinctive 
actions. 

These  views  seem  to  account  for  all  the  pecul- 
iarities of  instinctive  actions,  and,  if  they  are  cor- 
rect, instinct  is  not  a  distinct  faculty,  property, 
or  quality  of  being  that  may  be  put  in  the  same 
category  and  comjjared  with  or  distinguished 
from  reason,  but  has  relation  only  to  the  mode  in 
which  we  became  possessed  of  the  knowledge  by 
which  we  determine  our  actions.  In  regard  to  the 
instinctive,  this  knowledge  being  innate,  we  have 
no  occasion  to  use  our  reason  to  obtain  it.  Hence 
instinct  is  often  regarded  as  fulfilling  the  func- 
tion of  reason. 

Whether  the  innate  knowledge  of  modes  and 
plans  is  by  transmission  or  otherwise  does  not 
affect  our  theory.  The  fact  that  they  are  thus 
ready  formed  in  the  being  without  effort  of  its 
own  seems  to  be  assured  by  actual  observation, 
and  to  be  sufficient  to  explain  all  the  peculiar 
phenomena  of  instinctive  action. 

The  genesis  of  our  action  must  be  instinctive, 
founded  on  innate  knowledge,  there  being  no  pos- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  29 

sible  way  in  which,  through  experience  or  reflec- 
tion, we  could  ever  learn  by  effort  to  put  either 
our  muscular  or  mental  powers  in  action. 

The  instinctive  actions  are  of  the  same  char- 
acter in  all  grades  of  being ;  and  in  regard  to 
rational  actions  I  see  no  distinction  in  kind,  but 
only  in  degree,  between  those  of  man  and  the 
lower  animals.  Descending  in  the  scale  of  intel- 
ligence we  will  probably  reach  a  grade  of  beings 
which  do  not  seek  to  add  to  their  innate  knowl- 
edge, nor  invent  or  form  new  plans  to  meet  new 
occasions  for  effort. 

The  actions  of  such  must  be  wholly  instinctive, 
but  I  have  seen  dogs  and  horses  draw  inferences 
and  work  out  ingenious  plans  of  action  adapted  to 
conditions  so  unnatural  and  improbable  to  them 
as  to  preclude  the  assumption  that  they  had  been 
specially  provided  by  nature,  through  hereditary 
transmission  or  otherwise,  with  the  knowledge  of 
the  plan  they  adopted  for  such  exigency.^ 

In  regard  to  habit  I  would  further  state  that  it 
is  but  a  substitution  of  former  results  of  investi- 
gation and  experience  for  present  examination 
and  trial.  Through  it  memory  performs  the  same 
office  for  action  that  it  does  for  knowledge,  retain- 
ing the  acquisitions  of   the  past  for  permanent 

use. 

1  See  Note  5. 


30  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

If  on  every  occasion  for  their  application  we 
had  to  re-learn  the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  there 
conld  be  very  little  progress  in  general  knowledge, 
and  so  if  on  every  occasion  for  action  we  had  to 
devise  or  examine  and  decide  as  to  the  best  plan, 
we  should  make  very  little  progress  in  acquiring 
modes  of  action  or  facility  in  their  application. 
By  these  conserving  agencies  the  mind  garners 
what  is  matured,  and  is  ready  for  new  acquisi- 
tions. 

The  agency  of  habit  in  retaining  previously 
considered  modes  of  action,  right  or  wrong,  and 
making  them  permanent  accretions  to  the  moral 
character  is  its  most  important  function. 

Having  now  shown  that  these  apparently  excep- 
tional cases  of  instinctive  and  habitual  actions  are 
really  embraced  in  our  general  formula,  that  all 
our  actions  are  efforts,  self-directed  by  means  of 
our  knowledge  to  the  gratification  of  a  want,  and 
consequently  are  free,  I  will  note  some  of  the  con- 
flicting views  of  the  advocates  of  necessity. 

I  have  already  alluded  to  the  fallacies  which 
grow  out  of  regarding  the  will  as  a  distinct  entity, 
and  from  the  erroneous  definitions  of  it,  and  of 
freedom,  and  also  from  identifying  the  latter  with 
choice. 

§  8.  But  the  argument  from  cause  and  effect 
seems  to  be  most  relied  upon  by  necessarians. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE.  31 

I  adopt  a  stateiuent  of  this  argiunent  whicli  has 
the  assent  of  one  of  its  most  distinguished  advo- 
cates, viz.  :  If  all  the  circumstances  in  a  thousand 
cases  are  alike,  and  the  conditions  of  the  mind 
also  the  same,  then  the  willing  will  be  the  same, 
and  this  uniformity  indicates  necessity. 

This  assumes  as  the  basis  of  the  argument  that 
the  same  causes  must  produce  the  same  effects. 

In  the  first  place  I  woidd  remark  that  an  intelli- 
gent  self-active  cause  is  under  no  necessity  u])on 
a  recurrence  of  the  same  circumstances  to  repeat 
its  action,  but  having  in  the  first  case  increased 
its  laiowledge,  it  may  act  differently  in  the  sec- 
ond. 

It  may  with  reason  be  said  that  with  this  in- 
crease of  knowledge  the  conditions  of  the  mind 
are  different,  but  if  this  difference  is  not  tacitly 
excepted,  the  hj^pothesis  of  a  thousand  like  cases 
is  inconceivable,  inasmuch  as  there  coidd  not  even 
be  two  such. 

But  giving  the  argument  all  that  is  intended  by 
those  who  urge  it,  and  granting  their  assumption, 
that  the  same  causes  do  of  necessity  produce  the 
same  effects,  let  us  suppose  the  circumstances  in 
one  thousand  cases  to  be  alike,  and  the  conditions 
of  the  mind  at  each  recurrence  of  them  to  be  the 
same,  and  that  one  of    these  conditions  of    the 


32  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

mind  Is  that  of  necessity,  then  the  same  causes 
of  necessity  producing  the  same  effects,  the  same 
action  follows. 

Again,  suppose  the  circumstances  in  another 
thousand  cases  to  be  alike,  and  the  conditions  of 
the  mind  again  the  same  in  each  case,  but  that  in 
these,  one  of  the  conditions  of  the  mind,  instead  of 
being  necessity,  is  freedom,  then  the  same  causes 
of  necessity  producing  the  same  effects,  the  same 
action  follows. 

Now,  as  the  result  is  in  both  cases  the  same, 
it  cannot  possibly  indicate  whether  it  is  necessity 
or  freedom  that  is  among  the  conditions,  and  it 
proves  nothing. 

One  phase  of  this  argument  from  cause  and 
effect  is  that  all  the  present  events,  including  vo- 
litions, are  necessary  consequences  of  their  ante- 
cedents. I  have  already  treated  of  this  asserted 
dependence  of  the  present  on  the  past,  and  will 
now  only  add  that  intelligent  action  is  always 
wholly  upon  the  present  conditions,  and  has  refer- 
ence solely  to  an  effect  in  the  future,  and  it  is  not 
material  to  such  action  how  or  when  either  the 
active  being,  as  he  is,  or  the  conditions  for  him  to 
act  upon,  came  to  be,  or  how  connected  with  the 
past,  nor  whether  they  had  any  past.  If,  however, 
by    the  force  of    past    events   themselves,  or  by 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  33 

any  causes  whatever,  there  is  established  a  certain 
flow  of  events  having  a  tendency  to  extend  into 
the  future,  such  flow  in  its  effect  upon  oui*  freedom 
in  willino;  does  not  differ  from  that  flow  which  is 
the  composite  residt  of  conative  efforts,  which  I 
have  ah-eady  considered.  Our  individual  action 
is  always  to  interrupt  or  modify  such  flow.  We 
decide  as  to  our  own  actions  by  our  pre-concep- 
tions,  our  prescience  —  more  or  less  reliable  — 
of  what  the  future  will  be  with,  and  what  without, 
our  own  efforts. 

§  9.  The  influence  of  present  external  condi- 
tions is  also  much  relied  upon  by  the  advocates  of 
necessity,  but  I  trust  it  is  already  obvious  that  we 
may  vary  our  free  action  with  the  circumstances, 
that  we  act  as  freely  upon  one  set  of  them  as 
upon  any  other,  and  that  such  action  bemg  self- 
conformed  is  perfectly  free. 

The  influence  of  internal  phenomena,  as  the 
moral  character,  knowledge,  disposition,  inclina- 
tion, desires,  wants,  habits,  etc.,  which  make  up 
the  attributes  and  conditions  of  the  mind  that 
wills,  is  also  much  relied  upon,  and  necessarians 
have  been  at  much  pains  to  show  that  the  willing 
is  always  in  conformity  to  these.  But  in  view  of 
the  fact  that  freedom,  in  the  act  of  willing,  con- 
sists  in    the    action    being    self-controlled    and 

3 


34  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

directed,  it  would  have  served  the  purposes  of 
their  argument  much  better  to  have  proved  that 
the  action  was  counter  to  or  diverse  from  the 
character.  They  seem  to  have  been  especially 
unfortunate  in  making  successful  efforts  to  prove 
that  our  actions  are  always  in  agreement  with  our 
prevailing  choice,  or,  which  with  them  is  very 
nearly  the  same  thing,  with  our  strongest  motive. 
The  moral  character  of  the  being  is  indicated  and 
represented  by  its  efforts,  but  this  manifestation 
through  the  efforts  does  not  affect  its  freedom  in 
making  them.     A  demon  is  as  free  as  an  angel. 

Nor  is  it  material  to  the  question  of  freedom 
how  the  being  came  to  be  as  he  is ;  whether  his 
own  character  has  been  the  result  of  his  own 
efforts  or  of  other  power  or  circumstances ;  or 
whether  his  own  knowledge,  by  which  he  directs 
his  actions,  has  been  acquired  with  or  without  ex- 
trinsic aid.  The  fact  that  his  willing  will  vary 
with  and  conform  to  his  character  —  his  dispo- 
sition and  his  knowledge  —  indicates  that  he  con- 
trols his  action.  If  he  does  not,  then  there  is  no 
reason  to  expect  that  his  action  will  so  conform. 

§  10.  Tlie  advocates  of  necessity  often  ask  if  a 
man  could  will  the  contrary  of  what  he  does  will. 
I  would  say  that  he  could  if  he  so  decided ;  but  it 
would  be  a  contradictory  and  absurd  idea  of  free- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  35 

dom,  which  for  its  realization  would  require  that 
one  might  try  to  do  what  he  had  determined  not 
to  try  to  do.  In  short,  all  these  arguments  of  the 
necessarians,  that  our  acts  of  will  are  not  free  be- 
cause they  must  conform  to  our  own  character,  our 
own  views  and  decisions,  virtually  assert  that  one 
is  not  free  because  he  must  be  free  ;  or,  in  other 
words,  being  of  necessity  free,  he  is  constrained 
to  be  free,  and  hence  is  not  free. 

§  11.  Edwards  and  other  theologians  agreeing 
wath  him  have  regarded  the  argument  from  pre- 
science of  volitions,  which  they  hold  to  be  perfect 
in  deity,  as  very  conclusive.  They  assume  not 
only  that  a  volition  which  is  infallibly  foreknown 
must  of  necessity  happen,  but  that  it  must  hap- 
pen by  restraint  or  coercion  of  the  willing  agent. 
This  is  not  a  logical  inference.  Whether  a  free 
volition  ever  can  be  infallibly  foreknown  may  be 
doubted.  I  think  I  have  already  shown  that  such 
foreknowledge  is  not  requisite  to  the  supreme  sov- 
ereignty of  the  universe.  But  some  pliilosophers, 
who  in  their  inquiries  exclude  theology  and  reve- 
lation, also  argue  that  the  imperfect  prescience, 
which  must  be  an  element  in  the  decision  of  all 
our  efforts  to  influence  the  future,  also  indicates 
necessity.  Both  hold  that  the  possibility  of  pre- 
diction involves  necessity  as  to  the  volition.     But 


36  31  AN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

if,  as  I  hope  to  demonstrate,  a  free  act  is  as  easily 
foreknown  and  predicted  as  one  that  is  not  free, 
this  argument  is  wholly  unavailing.  If  some 
being  by  its  power  controls  a  future  event,  it 
of  course  can  foreknow  and  predict  it,  but  such 
control  of  the  volition  of  another,  for  reasons  al- 
ready stated,  I  hold  to  be  impossible,  involving 
a  contradiction  which  power  cannot  reconcile. 
Aside  from  this  conclusion,  the  difference  be- 
tween a  volition  which  is  free  and  one  which  is 
not  free  is  that  the  former  is  controlled  and  di- 
rected by  the  being  in  which  it  is  manifested,  and 
the  latter  by  some  extrinsic  power.  Our  prin- 
cipal means  of  foreknowing  what  the  self-di- 
rected, the  free,  act  of  an  intelligent  being  will 
be  is  its  conformity  to  the  known  character, 
habits,  etc.,  of  the  actor;  and  if  it  is  admitted 
that  the  external  power  which  controls  and  di- 
rects the  action  which  is  not  seK-directed  always 
conforms  the  act  to  the  character  of  the  be- 
ing in  which  the  action  is  manifested,  then  the 
probabilities  of  forming  a  correct  judgment  of 
what  the  action  or  effort  will  be  are  in  this 
respect  exactly  equal.  But  the  admission  that 
this  conforming  of  the  action  to  the  character  of 
the  actor  is  by  an  extrinsic  power,  and  not  by  the 
actor  himself,  is  an  unwarrantable,  I  might  per- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  37 

haps  say  an  absurd,  assumption.  In  stating  it 
one  can  hardly  avoid  a  solecism,  for  the  char- 
acter which  is  thus  presented  to  us  by  the  actions 
is  not  that  of  the  being  apparently  acting,  but 
of  the  power  or  powers  which  determine  the  ac- 
tions. The  actions  in  such  case  might  repre- 
sent as  consistent  character,  for  to  the  outside 
observer  the  actions  make  the  character ;  but  it 
would  be  the  character,  not  of  the  being  ap- 
parently acting,  which  we  perceive  or  know,  but 
of  the  being  or  power  extrinsic  to  it  which  we 
may  not  luiow.  All  our  knowledge  of  beings  as 
individuals,  and  even  of  species,  would  thus  be 
annihilated.  The  hypothesis  of  such  extrinsic 
ao'ency  in  conforming  the  action  to  the  character 
of  the  actor  is  in  various  aspects  of  it  a  gratui- 
tous and  inadmissible  assumption. 

If  it  still  be  urged  that  the  act  may  be  con- 
trolled by  an  extrinsic  power  that  does  not  conform 
the  action  to  the  character  of  the  apparent  actor, 
then  if  we  do  not  know  this  extrinsic  power  we 
wholly  lose  our  principal  means  of  predicting  what 
the  action  will  be  ;  and  if  we  do  know  it,  and 
know  it  without  any  effort,  we  still  have  to  meet 
the  same  difficulties,  somewhat  more  complicated 
by  this  extrinsic  agency,  to  ascertain  what  this 
extrinsic  power  woidd  determine  this  unfree  act 

8795;) 


38  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

of  another  to  be,  as  we  would  to  solve  the  ques- 
tion as  to  what  the  more  direct  and  sim])le,  self- 
determined  free  act  of  this  other  would  be  ;  so 
that  on  any  admissible  hypothesis  the  free  act 
of  will  is  (to  all  except  an  intelligent  controlling 
power)  more  easily  foreknown  and  jjredicted  than 
one  that  is  not  free,  and  if  this  argument  from 
the  susceptibility  to  prediction  has  any  weight,  it 
is  in  favor  of  freedom  and  not  of  necessity.^ 

§  12.  I  will  now  recur  to  the  position  be- 
fore reached,  that  every  being  endowed  with  the 
faculty  of  will,  a  capacity  for  knowledge  and  a 
susceptibility  to  feeling,  has  within  itself  all  the 
essentials  of  a  self-active  being,  and  can  begin 
action,  and,  so  far  as  it  has  hnowledge  of  a  mode, 
can  make  effort  to  produce  any  effects,  and  so  far 
as  it  has  power  can  actually  produce  them,  with- 
out any  extrinsic  aid.  Every  such  being  is  thus 
a  creative  first  cause,  an  indei^endent  power 
in  the  universe,  in  a  sphere  commensurate  with 
its  knowledge,  freely  putting  forth  its  efforts  to 
change  existing  conditions. 

The  power  and  knowledge  of  such  a  being  may 
be  very  limited  ;  but  within  the  limits  of  these 
attributes  its  action  is  as  foee  as  if  it  were 
omniscient  and  omnipotent.      Its  effort  must  al- 

1  See  Note  6. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  39 

ways  be  to  make  the  futui-e  different  from  what 
but  for  such  effort,  it  would  be.  Such  being 
is  thus  a  co-worker  with  God,  and  with  all  other 
conative  beings,  in  creating  the  future  which  is 
always  the  composite  result  of  the  action  of  all 
such  beings. 

If  we  suppose  an  oj^ster  with  no  other  efficient 
'power  than  that  of  moving  its  shell,  and  with 
knowledge  of  only  one  mode  of  doing  this,  and 
this  instinctive,  still,  when  by  its  own  effort,  di- 
rected by  its  own  knowledge,  it  effects  this  moving, 
it  so  far  makes  the  future  different  from  what  it 
would  have  been,  and  so  far  performs  a  part  in 
the  creation  of  that  future. 

But  I  shall  deal  mainly  with  our  own  more  in- 
telligent order  of  beings,  which  not  only  laiows, 
but  devises  modes  of  actions  suited  to  the  varying 
occasions  of  life,  and  in  which  the  creative  powers 
of  effort,  incited  by  feeling  and  directed  by  knowl- 
edge, are  more  abundantly  manifested. 

For  the  exercise  of  these  creative  powers  we 
have  two  distinct  spheres  of  effort,  the  one  with- 
out and  the  other  wdthin  us ;  that  without  us  em- 
bracing all  material  phenomena,  and  so  much  of 
the  spiritual  as  we  attribute  to  other  intelligent 
beings.  All  this  sphere  is  known  to  us  through 
our  sensations  and  as  an  inference  from  them. 


40  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

0£  the  plienomena  of  our  own  spiritual  nature 
we  are  directly  conscious.  Tlie  phenomena  with- 
out us  are  conveniently  called  objective,  and  those 
within  us  subjective.  Our  efforts  to  effect  change 
in  either  sphere  are  always  subjective.  In  efforts 
for  objective  change  we  always  begin  by  a  move- 
ment of  our  own  muscles.  We  thus  directly 
change  the  material  status  without  us,  and,  as 
already  shown,  we  may  by  such  change  in  the 
external  material  conditions  to  be  acted  upon 
indirectly  influence  the  free  action  of  others. 
We  can  thus  b}^  our  own  efforts  make  objective 
phenomena,  including  the  mental  action  and  voli- 
tions of  others,  different  from  what  they  otherwise 
wordd  be. 

§  13.  I  have  already  alluded  to  the  two  differ- 
ent hypotheses,  the  one  regarding  material  phe- 
nomena as  forms  of  a  distinct  entity,  called  mat- 
ter; the  other  regarding  it  as  but  the  thought 
and  imagery  of  the  mind  of  God  immediately 
impressed  upon  and  made  palpable  to  our  finite 
minds,  without  any  intermediate  vehicle  in  the 
process. 

In  either  case  the  sensations,  by  which  alone 
we  know,  or  which  perliaps  are  all  there  is,  of 
the  phenomena,  are  equally  real,  and  are  in  fact 
identically  the  same   on   the  one   hyijothesis  as 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  41 

upon  the  other.  If  as  a  result  or  corollary  of 
our  arguments  in  regard  to  cause,  or  otherwise, 
the  material  universe  is  regarded  as  the  work  of 
an  intelligent  Creator,  working  with  design  to 
produce  a  certain  effect,  then,  upon  either  of 
these  hypotheses,  it  is  the  presentation  and  ex- 
pression of  a  conception  existing  as  thought  and 
miagery  in  his  mind  before  he  gave  it  palpable 
tangible  existence  in  ours,  and  the  only  question 
as  between  the  two  hypotheses  is,  whether,  in 
making  it  palpable  to  us,  he  transfers  this  thought 
and  imagery  directly  to  our  minds,  or  does  this 
by  painting,  carving,  or  moulding,  in  a  distinct 
material  substance. 

I  have  already  intimated  my  leaning  to  the 
ideal  hypothesis  as  being  more  simple  and  equally 
competent  to  embrace  and  explain  all  material 
phenomena. 

I  will  here  remark  that  the  adopting  of  one  or 
the  other  of  these  two  hypotheses  has  very  little, 
if  any,  bearing  upon  the  views  which  I  am  pre- 
senting :  whether  the  Supreme  Intelligence  found 
the  matter,  in  which  he  expresses  and  makes  his 
thoughts  permanent  and  tangible  ready  made,  or 
made  it  himself,  either  as  a  distinct  entity,  or  as 
mere  imagery  of  his  mind,  has  in  most  respects 
no  more  significance   than  the  question  whether 


42  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

Milton  and  Shakespeare  and  Bacon  fonnd  exist- 
ing materials  for  expressing  and  making  their 
thoughts  palpable  and  permanent,  or  contrived 
and  made  the  pen,  ink,  and  paper,  which  they 
used  for  this  purpose.  In  either  case  we  get  the 
thoughts  of  the  author,  and  can  use  the  same 
means  to  express  our  own,  including  even  in  some 
measure  the  visible  creations  in  which  the  Author 
of  all  has  conununicated  his  thoughts. 

Another  consideration  in  favor  of  the  ideal 
hypothesis  is,  that  by  means  of  it  creating  be- 
comes more  conceivable  to  us :  we  can  any  of 
us  conceive  or  imagine  a  landscape  and  vary  its 
features  at  will ;  this  is  an  incipient  creation, 
which  by  effort  we  may  make  more  or  less  per- 
fect. 

Such  creations  of  our  own  we  for  the  time  be- 
ing locate  outside  of  ourselves,  and  while  we  are 
wholly  absorbed  in  contemj)lating  them,  they  are 
to  us  perfect  external  material  creations. 

To  make  them  such  to  others  requires  that  we 
should  in  some  way  impress  our  conceptions  ujson 
their  minds,  and  make  the  imagery  of  our  own 
palpable  to  theirs.  Though  our  faculty  of  doing 
this,  as  compared  with  that  of  creating  the  im- 
agery, seems  to  be  very  limited,  we  are  none  of 
us  wholly  devoid  of  it.     Landscape  gardeners,  ar- 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  43 

chitects,  sculptors,  painters,  and  more  especially 
poets,  have  it  in  marked  degree.  In  all  these  it  is 
effected  by  slow,  tentative  processes,  though  in  the 
latter  it  often  appears  as  a  genuine  spontaneity, 
a  fiat  of  creative  genius. 

We  then  already  have  and  habitually  exercise 
all  the  faculties  essential  to  material  creation,  and 
with  the  requisite  increase  in  that  of  impressing 
others  we  could  design  and  give  palpable  persis- 
tent existence  to  a  imiverse  varying  to  any  extent 
from  that  which  now  environs  us,  which  would  be 
objectively  as  real  and  material  to  the  vision,  even, 
of  others,  as  the  heavens  and  the  earth  they  now 
look  out  upon. 

Though  these  creations  of  our  own  are  mostly 
evanescent,  and  the  persistent  reality  which  wdtli 
great  labor  and  pains  we  give  to  some  of  them 
is  very  limited,  and  the  presentation  even  of  these 
very  imperfect,  still  they  show  that  we  have 
within  us  the  rudiments  of  all  the  faculties  which 
on  the  ideal  hj^DOthesis  are  essential  to  creating. 
This  hypothesis  is  further  commended  to  us  by 
the  consideration  that  man  having  in  a  finite  de- 
gree all  the  other  powers  usually  attributed  to  the 
Supreme  Intelligence,  lacks  under  the  material 
theory  that  of  creating  matter.  Corresponding  to 
the  Divine  omnipotence,  omniscience,  and  omui- 


44  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE. 

presence,  man  has  finite  power  and  finite  knowl- 
edge, and  can  make  all  the  ideas  and  objects  of 
his  knowledge  pal2:)ably  present,  which  is  equiv- 
alent to,  and  under  the  ideal  hypothesis  is  iden- 
tical with,  a  finite  presence,  limited  like  our  other 
attributes  to  the  sphere  of  our  knowledge.  The 
ideal  hypothesis  then  rounds  out  our  ideas  of  cre- 
ative intelligence,  relieving  us  of  the  anomaly  of 
the  creation  of  matter  as  a  distinct  entity,  for 
which  we  have  in  ourselves  no  consciovis  rudiment 
of  power  and  of  which  we  cannot  conceive,  and 
we  find  little  if  any  relief  in  the  alternative  that 
matter  has  always  existed  without  having  been 
created. 

A  legitimate  inference  from  the  foregoing  prem- 
ises seems  to  be  that  if  from  any  cause  one's  own 
incipient  creation  of  objective  phenomena  should 
become  so  fixed  in  his  mind  that  he  could  not 
change  it  at  will,  it  would  become  to  him  a  per- 
manent external  reality.  This  inference  is  em- 
pirically confirmed  by  the  fact  that  this  some- 
times happens  in  abnormal  conditions  of  the  mind. 

However  conscious  we  may  be  of  our  own 
agency  in  the  formative  process,  as  to  the  forma- 
tions themselves,  their  subjection  to  our  own  will 
seems  to  be  the  only  element  by  which  we  distin- 
guish our  own  ideal  creations  from  objective  phe- 
nomena. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE.  45 

This  strongly  suggests  that  tlie  difference  be- 
tween the  creative  powers  of  man  and  those  of  the 
Supreme  Intelligence  is  mainly  if  not  wholly  in 
degree  and  not  in  kind,  and  that  even  in  this  the 
disparity,  vast  as  it  is,  is  still  not  so  incomprehen- 
sible as  has  been  generally  supposed.  This  gives 
warrant  to  the  logic  in  w'hich  by  short  steps  we 
attribute  all  creations  and  all  cliangcs,  which  we 
regard  as  beyond  our  own  power  and  beyond  that 
of  other  embodied  intelligences  known  to  us,  to  a 
superior  intelligence  with  the  same  powers  which 
we  possess  and  use  to  create  and  change,  in- 
creased, we  need  not  say  infinitely,  but  to  a  degree 
corresponding  to  the  effects  which  we  cognize  and 
ascribe  to  them. 

I  will  fiu'ther  remark  that  so  long  as  these  cre- 
ations even  of  the  objective  are  purely  subjective, 
there  is  no  limit  to  the  interest  or  the  variety  of 
our  combinations.  We  are  not  confined  to  any  ex- 
perience of  the  actual  nor  constrained  by  any  no- 
tion of  propriety  or  harmony,  but  can  make  roses 
bloom  in  regions  of  perpetual  snow,  or  locate  a  sun 
in  the  zenith  of  a  nocturnal  sky.  Nor  can  we  any 
more  conceive  of  a  limit  to  the  extension  of  these 
incipient  creations  than  we  can  of  a  limit  to  space. 
In  such  formations,  and  even  as  to  those  which 
we  locate  in  the  external,  our  creative  fiat  is  ab- 


46  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

solute  as  to  their  accomplishment  and  unlimited 
as  to  their  extension.  But  when  we  seek  to  make 
these  creations  permanent  to  ourselves  and  pal- 
pable to  others,  we  find  our  ability  to  do  this  is 
in  striking  contrast  with  the  power  by  which  we 
produce  them.  Tlie  paltry  changes  on  a  few  feet 
of  canvas,  or  a  few  roods  of  earth,  or  a  few  de- 
scriptive pages,  is  all  that  remains  of  the  most 
magnificent  ideal  constructions  of  the  most  gifted. 
In  this  external  sphere,  the  common  domain  of 
all,  there  can  be  no  appreciable  monopoly  by  any. 


DISCOURSE  II. 

MAN    IN    THE    SPHERE    OF    HIS    OWN   MORAL   NA- 
TURE  A   SUPREME   CREATIVE   FIRST   CAUSE. 

In  my  former  discourse  I  argued  that  man  is 
a  self  active  and  self  directed  agent,  with  creative 
powers  which  he  freely  and  successfully  exerts  to 
change  the  existing  conditions  and  moidd  the  fu- 
ture. Having,  then,  treated  of  the  exercise  of 
this  creative  power  in  the  external,  which  is  the 
connnon  arena  of  all  intelligent  activity,  I  pro- 
pose now  to  sjieak  more  especially  of  its  manifes- 
tations in  the  internal,  in  which  each  individual 
has  his  own  special  sphere  of  creative  effort, 
bounded  only  by  his  knowledge. 

§  14.  I  have  already  argued  that  some  of  our 
knowledge  must  be  innate,  and  that  some  of  what 
we  acquire  is  obtained  without  our  seeking,  — 
withoiit  our  effort.^  External  phenomena  come 
into  the  mind  unbidden,  and  cannot  always  be 
excluded.  So,  too,  the  facts  and  ideas  which  are 
already  stored  in  the  memory  often  come  into 
1  See  page  4. 


48  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

view,  and  with  tliem  tlie  perception  of  new  rela- 
tions, withont  any  preliminary  effort,  and  these 
cannot  be  discarded  by  any  direct  effort.  This 
independence  of  the  will  gives  to  these  intuitions 
the  distinguishing-  characteristic  of  the  phenomena 
of  a  sense,  and,  with  the  observed  facts,  indicates 
the  existence  of  a  cognitive  sense. 

As  before  stated,  our  acquisitions  of  knowledge 
are  always  by  shnjjle  immediate  perception,  and 
hence  in  the  final  assimilation  these  are  all  the 
subjects  of  the  cognitive  sense  ;  but  some  of  our 
cognitions  do,  and  others  do  not,  require  prelim- 
inary effort  to  bring  them  within  the  range  of  this 
immediate  mental  vision. 

In  this  there  is  no  difference,  ^jcr  se,  as  to  our 
perceptions  of  external  and  internal  objects.  In 
the  external  we  may  have  to  remove  obstacles  to 
our  seeing  or  hearing,  and  though  our  internal 
cognitions  are  tlie  mind's  more  direct  perception 
of  what  is  already  within  itself,  we  still  often 
need,  by  effort,  to  change  the  combination  or  ar- 
rangement of  the  ideas  before  the  resulting  rela- 
tion or  truth  becomes  manifest.  In  both  cases  tlie 
intuitive  perceptions  of  the  sense  are  distinguished 
from  the  results  of  the  rational  faculty  by  the 
effort  required  for  the  latter. 

The   phenomena  of   the   external  are  brought 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE.  49 

within  range  of  our  immediate  mental  percep- 
tions by  means  of  the  external  organs  of  sense. 
For  the  internal  cognitive  spontaneity,  the  main, 
if  not  the  only,  immediate  instrumentalities  seem 
to  be  the  operations  of  memory  and  association, 
singly  and  in  combination ;  but  its  genesis  is 
often,  perhaps  always,  by  suggestion  from  the 
bodily  organs,  through  the  senses,  or  the  appetites 
which  nuieh  resemble  and  are  closely  allied  to  the 
senses.  The  somid  of  a  cannon  may  call  uj)  our 
knowledge  of  the  battle  of  Waterloo.  The  con- 
tinual flow  of  ideas  through  the  mind,  singly  or 
in  trains  or  groups,  is  to  it  an  exhaustless  source 
of  knowledge.  If  the  mind  ever  became  wholly 
inactive  and  oblivious,  it  could  only  be  aroused 
and  rescued  from  annihilation  by  some  extrinsic 
agency.  Our  spontaneous  cognitions  of  external 
objects  and  contemporaneous  changes  may  be  pre- 
sented by  the  bodily  organs  of  sense  in  any  pos- 
sible order  or  combination,  and  the  internal  phe- 
nomena may  come  into  notice  in  a  like  manner, 
though  in  the  latter  the  combinations  and  the 
order  of  succession  seem  to  be  more  subordinated 
to  the  associations  of  experience. 

The  cognitive  sense  seems  then  to  be,  as  it  were, 
the  common  terminus  of  the  arrangement,  organ- 
ism, or  means  by  which  both  objective  and  subjec- 


50  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

tive  phenomena  are  immediately  presented  to  the 
mind.  These  presentations  become  the  subjects  of 
our  judgments,  which  may  also  be  with  or  without 
preliminary  effort :  e.  g.,  we  perceive  at  once  the 
difference  in  the  size  of  a  pea  and  an  orange,  but 
do  not  thus  perceive  the  equality  of  the  sum  of 
the  angles  of  a  triangle  to  two  right  angles. 

To  illustrate  these  processes,  suppose  the  four 
letters  y,  t,  i,  a,  are  put  before  me  to  form  into  a 
word.  It  may  so  happen  that  I  shall  see  them  at 
first  glance  in  the  order ^a^,  and  the  thing  is  done, 
or  I  may  have  to  proceed  tentatively  through  few 
or  many  of  the  combinations  which  the  letters 
admit  of.  So,  too,  the  internal  may  accidentally 
come  into  view  in  such  order  that  some  new  rela- 
tion is  immediately  apparent,  and  seems  like  a 
sudden  flash  illuminating  the  mind  from  without, 
without  any  agency  of  its  own.  The  circum- 
stances and  the  perception  may  thus  come  under 
our  observation  without  even  an  effort  to  direct 
attention  to  them. 

We  distinguish  the  various  perceptions  of  the 
one  cognitive  sense,  first  as  objective  and  subject 
tive,  and  then  classify  the  former  as  senses  of  see- 
ing, hearing,  etc.  ;  and,  in  regard  to  the  latter,  we 
speak  of  the  sense  of  beauty,  of  order,  of  justice, 
honor,  shame,  etc.     "When  the   subject  of  these 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  51 

cognitions,  and  of  the  judgments  upon  them, 
spontaneous  or  otherwise,  is  that  of  moral  right 
and  wi'ong',  they  constitute  the  genetic  elements 
of  the  moral  sense.  But  the  mere  perception  or 
judgment  as  to  right  and  wrong  has  of  itself  no 
more  effect  upon  the  sensibilities,  than  has  the 
cognition  that  twice  five  are  ten.  It  is  not  till  we 
regard  it  as  practically  applied  in  action  that  it 
produces  any  emotion.  Such  action  in  others, 
when  it  is  right,  elicits  our  approval  or  admira- 
tion, and,  when  wrong,  our  censure  or  indigna- 
tion; and  in  ourselves  the  triumph  of  the  right 
inspires  us  witli  the  pleasurable  and  elevating 
emotion  of  victory,  while  the  yielding  to  the 
temptation  to  ^vrong  brings  with  it  the  painful 
feelings  of  debility,  self-debasement,  and  dishonor. 
It  is  in  these  emotions  of  glory  and  of  shame  thus 
excited  that  we  find  the  manifestation  or  develop- 
ment of  conscience,  which  is  properly  the  moral 
sense,  to  the  sensations  of  which  the  cognition  of 
right  and  wrong  is  only  a  prerequisite.  Nor  is 
it  material  to  the  quality  of  our  action  whether 
these  cognitions  are  true  or  false,  for  the  moral 
virtue  of  our  action  all  lies  in  our  conforming 
them  to  our  convictions  of  duty ;  and  hence, 
though  false  convictions  may  cause  our  actions  to 
be  unwise,  they  do  not  affect  their  morality. 


62  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

In  regard  to  our  action  in  the  objective,  I  have 
argued  that  an  innate  knowledge  that  the  move- 
ment of  the  muscles  is  efPeeted  by  effort  is  a 
necessity,  but,  in  view  of  the  foregoing  premises, 
there  seems  to  be  no  analogous  necessity  that  we 
slioidd  have  any  such  knowledge  of  absolute  right 
and  wrong,  or  even  any  faculty  or  sense  by  wdiich 
we  can,  intuitively  or  otherwise,  acquire  such 
knowledge. 

The  design  of  conscience  seems  primarily  not  to 
punish  transgression,  but  to  warn  us  against  doing 
wdiat  is  injurious  to  our  moral  nature.  The  moni- 
tion comes  in  the  contemplation  of  the  act,  and 
prior  to  its  consummation,  as  in  case  one  thrusts 
his  hand  into  the  fire,  he  feels  the  j)ain  before  he 
is  seriously  injured;  and  as  by  frequent  repeti- 
tion the'tissues  become  callous  and  less  sensitive 
to  pain,  so,  too,  the  more  frequent  and  the  more 
flagrant  a  man's  iniquities,  the  less  the  pain  which 
conscience  inflicts  upon  him.  This  is  the  reverse 
of  what  it  should  be  if  punishment  were  the  ob- 
ject. With  this  warning  knowledge  of  the  effect, 
we  are  left  to  our  own  self-control,  our  own  free- 
dom in  action. 

§  15.  Our  efforts  for  change  in  the  sphere 
within  us,  excepting,  perhaps,  those  for  moral  con- 
struction, are  always  to  increase  our  knowledge. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  53 

The  knowledge  sought  may  be  of  either  sphere. 
Its  immediate  object  often,  perhaps  oftenest,  is  to 
enable  us  to  decide  more  wisely  as  to  our  action 
in  reference  to  the  actual  current  events  of  life  ; 
or  it  may  be  for  the  pleasure  we  derive  from  the 
mental  activity  in  the  process,  and  the  success 
which  is  almost  certain  to  reward  our  search  for 
truth.  We  can  hardly  fail  to  learn  something,  if 
not  what  we  sought.  A  higher  object  may  be  to 
permanently  increase  the  intellectual  power,  or, 
yet  higher,  to  improve  our  moral  nature. 

§  16.  For  the  acquisition  of  knowledge  by  ef- 
fort, mind  has  two  distinct  modes,  —  observation 
and  reflection.  By  the  former,  we  note  the  phe- 
nomena which  are  cognized  by  the  senses,  and  by 
the  latter  we  trace  out  the  relations  among  the 
ideas  —  the  knowledge  —  we  already  have  in 
store,  and  thus  obtain  new  perceptions,  new  ideas. 
A  large  portion  of  our  perceptions,  however  ac- 
quired, are  primarily  but  imagery  of  the  mind, 
—  pictures,  as  it  were,  of  what  we  have  perceived 
or  imagined.  In  this  form  we  will,  for  conven- 
ience, designate  them  as  primitive  perceptions  or 
ideals.  By  these  terms  I  especially  seek  to  dis- 
tinguish these  perceptions  from  those  which  we 
have  associated  with  words  or  other  signs  or  rep- 
resentatives of  things  and  ideas. 


54  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

There  is  a  somewhat  prevalent  notion  that  we 
can  think  only  in  words ;  but  it  is  obvious  that  we 
can  cognize  things  for  which  we  have  no  name, 
and  can  also  perceive  their  relations  before  we 
have  found  any  words  to  describe  them ;  and  in 
fact  such  knowledge  or  perception  generally  pre- 
cedes our  attempts  to  describe  them.^ 

These  primitive  perceptions,  or  ideals,  are  thus 
independent  of  the  words  which  we  use  to  repre- 
sent them,  and  to  which  they  may  have  a  separate 
and  prior  existence.  Even  when  in  a  strictly 
logical  verbal  process  we  reach  a  result  in  words, 
it  is  not  fidly  available  till,  by  a  reflex  action,  we 
get  a  mental  perception  of  that  which  those  words 
signify  or  stand  in  place  of. 

Much  of  our  acquired  knowledge  is  of  the  re- 
lations in  and  between  our  primitive  perceptions. 

In  the  pursuit  of  truth  by  reflective  effort  we 
also  have  two  modes.  In  the  fu-st  place,  we  may 
through  our  immediate  primitive  perceptions  of 
things  which  are  present,  or  the  mental  imagery 
of  things  remembered,  directly  note  the  existing 
relations  among  them  or  their  parts  without  the 
use  of  words  in  the  process ;  or,  we  may  substi- 
tute words  as  signs  or  definitions  of  these  pi-imi- 
tive  perceptions,  and  then  investigate  the  relations 
among  the  words  so  substituted. 

1  See  Note  7. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  55 

In  the  difference  of  these  two  modes  we  find  the 
fundamental  distinction  between  poetry  and  prose, 
the  former  being  the  ideal  or  poetic,  and  the  lat- 
ter the  logical  or  prosaic,  method.  The  poet  uses 
words  to  present  his  thoughts,  but  his  charm  lies 
in  so  using  them  that  the  primitive  perceptions  — 
the  imagery  of  his  mind  —  shall  be  so  transferred 
and  pictured  in  that  of  the  recipient  as  to  absorb 
his  attention  to  the  exclusion  of  the  verbal  me- 
dium. We  see  the  painting  without  thinking  of 
the  pigments  and  the  shading  by  which  it  is  im- 
pressed upon  US.  Every  reader  may  experiment- 
ally test  this  distinction.  If  it  is  well  founded, 
he  will  find  that  when  any  portion  of  a  poem,  in- 
stead of  thus  picturing  the  thought  on  his  mind, 
requires  him  to  get  at  it  by  means  of  the  relations 
of  the  terms  in  which  it  is  presented,  there  is  a 
cessation  or  revulsion  of  all  poetic  emotion. 

The  material  universe,  which,  npon  either  the 
ideal  or  materialistic  hypothesis,  is  the  thought 
and  imagery  of  the  mind  of  God  directly  im- 
pressed on  our  minds,  is  the  perfect,  and  perhaps 
the  only  perfect   iy^Q  of  the  poetic  mode. 

Poetry,  thus  depending  on  this  prominence  of 
the  primitive  perceptions,  is  the  nearest  possible 
approach  which  language  can  make  to  the  reality 
which  it  represents.    Assuming  that  simple  obser- 


56  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

vation  is  common  to  both,  these  two  modes  of 
investigation  —  the  one  carried  on  by  means  of  a 
direct  examination  of  the  realities  themselves,  or 
mental  images  of  them,  the  other  by  means  of 
words  or  other  signs  substituted  for  them  —  also 
present  the  fundamental  and  most  important,  if 
not  the  only,  distinction  in  our  methods  of  phil- 
osophic research  and  discovery. 

Each  has  its  peculiar  advantages,  and  both  are 
essential  to  om-  progress  in  knowledge.  Like  the 
external  senses  of  sight  and  feeling,  they  mutually 
confirm  or  correct  each  other. 

The  prosaic  has  the  advantage  of  condensing 
and  generalizing,  but  is  applicable  only  in  a  very 
contracted  sphere,  extending  little,  if  any,  beyond 
that  in  which  a  scientific  language  has  been  con- 
structed ;  while  the  poetic,  dealing  directly  wath 
the  things  or  their  images,  is  coextensive  with 
thought,  perception,  and  imagination. 

The  prosaic  can  do  little  more  than  aid  us  to 
find  and  condense  what  is,  and  this  only  in  the 
limited  domain  in  which  a  language  has  already 
been  constructed  ;  while  the  poetic  is  prophetic 
and  creative  in  a  sphere  as  boundless  as  its  fancy. 

Syllogistic  reasoning  furnishes  good  examples 
of  the  prosaic  mode,  but  the  purest  form  of  it  is 
manifested  in  our  dealings  with  algebraic  equa- 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  57 

tions.  In  these  we  use  letters,  as  signs  of  quan- 
tities (known  and  unknown),  and  other  signs  to 
express  their  relations  to  each  other,  and  then  by 
an  examination  of  these  signs  and  their  defined 
relations,  without  any  reference  to  any  actual 
quantities,  we  logically  deduce  general  formiilas 
applicable  to  all  quantities.-^ 

All  general  propositions  must  be  expressed  in 
the  prosaic  mode,  and  the  progress  of  knowledge 
usually  being  from  particulars  to  generals,  little 
advancement  can  be  made  without  it.  The  par- 
ticidars  become  too  numerous  and  cumbersome 
for  the  mind  to  deal  with  separately. 

But  the  poetic  mode  dealing  directly  with  the 
things  as  observed,  recollected,  or  imagined,  we 
are  by  it  enabled  to  advance  beyond  the  limits  of 
language  and  of  the  senses.  It  has  a  telescopic 
reach  by  which  it  penetrates  the  future  and  per- 
ceives the  earliest  dawn  of  truth. 

It  is  thus  the  most  efficient  truth-discovering 
power,  and  at  the  same  time  furnishes  the  means 
of  communicating  the  discoveries  it  makes  in  ad- 
vance of  the  logical  processes. 

The  greater  facility  and  rapidity  of  the  poetic 
over  the  logical  process  is  illustrated  by  the  ease 
and  quickness  with  wliich  we  jJCfceive  the  equality 

1  See  Note  8. 


68  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

of  two  figures  when  one  is  applied  directly  to  the 
other,  as  compared  with  our  ascertaining  this 
equality  by  means  of  a  geometrical  demonstration. 

This  greater  reach  and  quickness  makes  the 
poetic  power  the  essential  attribute  of  genius  in 
all  its  varieties.  But  this  poetic  power,  this 
power  of  dealing  directly  with  things,  or  our 
immediate  perceptions  of  them,  though  prominent 
in  the  more  gifted,  is  not  restricted  to  them,  but 
pervades  the  whole  domain  of  our  intellectual 
activity. 

In  its  least  ethereal  and  most  common  form, 
it  is  the  basis  of  that  common  sense  which,  look- 
ing directly  at  things,  events,  and  their  relations, 
enables  us  spontaneously  to  form  just  opinions,  or 
probable  conjectures,  of  immediate  consequences, 
and  to  determine  as  to  the  appropriate  action. 
From  this  low  estate,  when  aided  by  elevated 
moral  sentiments,  combined  with  intellectual 
power,  and  invigorated  with  warm  feelings,  pure 
passion,  and  fervid  enthusiasm,  it  rises  to  the  dig- 
nity of  inspiration  and  the  sublimity  of  prophecy. 

The  facility  of  application  to  the  current  affairs 
of  life  which  pertains  to  the  ideal  ^jrocesses  makes 
the  poetic  attribute  the  main  element  of  prac- 
tical business  ability.  The  current  events  of  life 
are  too  complicated,  variable,  and  heterogeneous 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  59 

for  the  application  of  verbal  logic.  In  the  mis- 
takes to  which  even  careful  and  skillful  logicians 
are  liable  from  too  hasty  generalizations,  faulty- 
definitions,  and  fallacious  inferences,  we  see  the 
danger  which  would  arise  if  the  uninitiated,  who 
are  immersed  in  business,  and  whose  decisions 
must  often  be  hasty,  should  rely  uj)on  processes 
of  reasoning  in  which  an  error  in  the  signification, 
or  in  the  application,  of  a  term  might  vitiate  their 
conclusions  and  lead  to  disastrous  action. 

To  such  the  processes  of  ideality  are  much 
safer.  In  these,  without  the  intervention  of 
words,  the  mind,  at  a  glance,  takes  in  the  actual 
conditions,  and  reaches  its  conclusions  in  incom- 
parably less  time  than  would  be  required  to  sub- 
stitute the  terms,  test  their  precision,  examine 
their  relations,  and  arrange  them  in  the  requisite 
logical  order. 

The  greater  quiclaiess  with  which  we  examine 
particular  cases  by  the  poetic  process  to  some 
extent  compensates  for  the  greater  number  of 
instances,  which  may  be  embraced  in  one  gener- 
alization of  the  prosaic. 

Persons  who  adopt  the  quicker  mode  are  often 
notably  discreet,  wise,  and  able  in  the  actual  con- 
duct of  affairs,  but  from  the  exclusion  of  words  in 
the  process,  and  its  flash-like  quickness,  they  can- 


60  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

not  state  the   grounds    of  their  conclusions,  nor 
assign  a  reason  for  their  consequent  action. 

The  poetic  processes  are  also  the  characteris- 
tic feature  of  what  has  been  termed  a  woman's 
reason,  which  is  thus  contradistinguished  from 
verbal  logic.  And  the  practical  application  of 
these  processes  is  illustrated  in  the  quick  and 
clear  perception  of  the  circumstances,  and  sound 
judgment  upon  them,  with  which  woman  is  prop- 
erly accredited.  This  feature  also  leads  us  intui- 
tively to  regard  woman  as  of  finer  mould,  and  to 
expect  from  her  aesthetically  and  morally  more 
than  from  the  sterner  sex.  And  it  is  to  her 
command  of  these  more  direct  and  more  ethereal 
modes  of  thought  and  expression  that  we  must  at- 
tribute her  superior  influence  in  softening  the  as- 
perities of  our  nature,  and  refining  and  elevating 
the  sentiments  of  our  race.  Hence,  too,  it  is  that 
while  the  finest  and  strongest  reasoning  of  pliilos- 
ophy  has  in  this  respect  accomplished  so  little, 
woman  has  accomplished  so  much.  The  refined 
subtleties  of  an  Aristotle,  or  the  glowing  sublimi- 
ties of  a  Plato,  though  presented  to  us  with  all 
the  fascinations  of  a  high-toned  morality,  with  all 
the  accessories  of  graceful  diction  and  persuasive 
eloquence,  are  dim  and  powerless  to  that  effliience 
of  soul  which  with  a  glance  unlocks  the  portals  to 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  61 

our  tenderness,  which  chides  our  error  with  a  tear, 
or  winning  us  to  virtue  with  the  omnipotence  of 
a  charm,  irradiates  the  path  of  duty  with  the 
beaming  eye,  and  cheers  it  with  the  approving 
smile  of  loveliness.  As  compared  with  such  in- 
fluences, the  results  of  logic  or  any  prosaic  form 
of  words  are  weak. 

It  is,  then,  through  the  poetic  processes  that 
we  mainly  get  the  perceptions,  the  knowledge,  by 
which  we  direct  our  actions  in  the  varying  events 
and  multifarious  combinations  of  every-day  life. 

Though  it  is  in  a  subdued  form  that  the  poetic 
power  is  thus  practically  available,  it  still  seems  a 
desecration  to  put  such  high  endowments  to  such 
common  uses ;  but  we  have  tamed  the  lightning 
and  made  it  run  on  our  errands  and  drudge  in 
our  workshops. 

§  17.  I  have  already  touched  upon  the  exercise 
of  our  creative  power  in  the  sphere  without  us,  in 
which  we  act  with  all  other  conative  beings.  But 
it  is  in  the  isolated  sphere  within  us,  in  the  seclu- 
sion of  our  own  spiritual  nature,  that  we  shoidd 
expect  to  find  this  power  most  potent,  and  our 
efforts,  always  mental,  most  successfid.  And  it 
is  in  a  better  knowledge  of  the  character,  the  re- 
lations, and  the  modes  of  the  poetic  and  the  log- 
ical processes  with  a  more  general  cultivation  of 


62  31  AN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

the  former,  and  by  a  more  systematic  and  intelli- 
gent selection  from  these  two  cardinal  modes  of 
investigation  of  that  which  is  best  suited  to  the 
subject  in  hand,  or  oftener  by  a  judicious  applica- 
tion of  both  to  the  same  subject,  so  that  each  may 
supplement  and  supply  the  deficiencies,  or  correct 
the  errors,  of  the  other,  that  I  look  for  increased 
efficiency,  reach,  and  accuracy  in  the  mind's  intel- 
lectual ability. 

The  discovery  of  improved  modes  for  such  cul- 
tivation, selection,  and  single  or  combined  appli- 
cation of  these  two  cardinal  methods  of  seeking 
truth,  and  the  means  of  making  these  discoveries 
accessible  and  available  to  the  popular  mind,  are 
both  within  the  province  of  the  metaphysician, 
and  they  open  to  him  an  elevated  sphere  of  util- 
ity. 

The  benefits  which  may  be  anticipated  from 
exploring  this  field  are  not  merely  those  which 
metaphysical  studies  confer  as  a  strengthening  ex- 
ercise to  the  mental  powers.  They  also  include 
the  making  of  the  same  strength  more  effective 
by  the  invention  or  discovery  of  improved  modes 
in  their  application. 

It  is  true  that  both  these  modes  of  thought 
must  always  have  been  in  practical  use,  but  with 
little  or  no  conscious  attention  as  to  the  selection 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  G3 

or  application  of  them,  singly  or  combined.  The 
neglect  or  unconsciousness  of  any  such  aids  is 
manifested  in  the  not  uncommon  belief  that  we 
always  think  in  words  —  a  belief  which  is  shared 
even  by  men  of  deep  philosophic  thought. 

§  18.  But  it  is  in  the  sphere  of  our  moral 
nature  that  I  look  for  beneficial  results  far  more 
important  than  even  the  increase  of  intellectual 
power,  and  in  this  more  especially  through  the 
agency  of  the  poetic  element.  It  is  in  this  realm 
that  we  would  naturally  look  for  the  most  congen- 
ial sphere  of  action  for  our  most  ethereal  attri- 
bute. Conformably  to  these  anticipations,  I  hope 
to  show  that,  in  the  formation  of  character,  this 
power  of  creating  imaginary  constructions,  and  of 
contemplating  and  perfecting  them,  exerts  an  in- 
fluence of  the  highest  importance,  which,  by  cul- 
tivation, may  be  enhanced  without  conceivable 
limit.  This  is  the  mode  in  which  our  conceptions 
of  mental  or  material  phenomena  most  nearly  sup- 
ply the  place  of  actual  experience,  and  in  some 
respects  with  decided  advantages.  The  occasions 
for  actual  experience,  too,  are  casual  and  uncer- 
tain, while  the  ideal  processes  are  always  avail- 
able. From  these  supposable  events,  which  are 
constantly  flowing  through  the  mind,  we  form 
rules  of  conduct,   or  receive  impressions,  which 


64  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

govern  us  in  tlie  concerns  of  real  life.  It  is  in 
meditating  on  tliese  that  we  nurture  the  innate 
feelings,  sentiments,  and  passions,  which  not  only- 
give  impTilse  to  transitory  action,  but  become  the 
main  elements  of  the  fixed  character.  He  who 
accustoms  himself  to  this  discipline,  who,  with- 
drawn from  the  bustle  of  the  world,  tranquilly 
contemplates  imaginary  cases,  and  determines  how 
he  ought  to  act  under  them,  frames  for  himself  a 
system  of  government  with  less  liability  to  error 
than  is  possible  in  the  tumultuous  scenes  of  active 
life.  He  is  not  swayed  by  those  interests  and  pas- 
sions which  so  often  distort  or  confuse  our  vision 
when  we  a^t  from  the  impulses  of  immediate  and 
pressing  circumstances. 

The  ideal  formations  may  not  be  accurately 
fitted  to  the  occasions  wliich  actually  arise,  but 
the  contingency  can  hardly  occur  in  which  some 
of  the  vast  number  of  them  that  may  be  con- 
structed, even  by  those  most  engrossed  with  the 
realities  of  life,  will  not  in  some  degree  be  appli- 
cable. They  will  at  least  furnish  suggestive 
analogies,  and  in  the  processes  lead  to  habits  of 
disinterested  thought,  which  are  so  essential  to 
the  successful  pursuit  of  truth,  and  especially  of 
moral  truths,  which  often  conflict  with  the  desires 
of  the  active  moment. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  G5 

We  cannot  directly  will  a  change  in  our  men- 
tal affections  any  more  than  in  what  are  termed 
bodily  sensations.  We  cannot  directly  will  the 
emotions  of  hope  or  fear,  or  to  be  pure  and  noble, 
or  even  to  want  to  become  pure  and  noble,  any 
more  than  we  can  directly  will  to  be  hungry,  or 
to  want  to  be  hungry.  If  we  want  to  take  food 
we  are  already  hungTy,  and  if  we  want  to  perform 
pure  and  noble  actions,  and  to  avoid  the  impure 
and  ignoble,  while  this  want  or  disposition  pre- 
vails we  are  already  intrinsically  pure  and  noble. 
If  we  want  to  be  hungry,  i.  e.,  want  to  want  food, 
and  Imow  that  by  exercise,  or  by  the  use  of 
certain  stimulants,  or  by  other  means,  we  may 
become  hungry,  we  may  by  effort  induce  this,  in 
such  case,  a  cultivated  want ;  and  if  we  want  to 
want  to  be  pure  and  noble  and  know  the  means, 
we  may,  in  like  manner,  by  effort  gratify  the  ex- 
citing want,  and  induce  the  want,  the  cultivated 
want,  to  become  pure  and  noble. 

If,  from  seeing  the  pleasure  which  admiring 
a  beautifid  flower  affords  to  others,  or  from  any 
other  cause,  we  want  to  admire  it,  we  will  readily 
perceive  that  some  additional  knowledge  is  essen- 
tial to  that  end ;  and  that  the  first  step  is  to  find, 
by  examination,  what  in  it  is  admirable.  To  ex- 
amine then  becomes  a  secondary  want,  and  we 
5 


66  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

will  to  examine.  The  result  of  this  examination 
may  be  that  its  before  unknown  beauties  excite 
our  admiration,  and  make  it,  or  the  gazing  upon 
it,  an  object  of  want ;  so  we  may  also  will  to  ex- 
amine what  is  pure  and  noble  till  its  developed 
loveliness  excites  in  us,  or  increases,  the  want  to 
be  pure  and  noble,  and  induces  a  correlative  aver- 
sion to  what  is  gross  and  base. 

The  occurrence  and  recurrence  of  onr  spiritual 
wants  are  as  certain  as  those  of  hunger.  We 
are  continually  reminded  of  them  by  our  own 
thoughts  and  acts,  by  comparison  with  those  of 
others,  and  by  the  external  manifestations  of 
God's  thought  and  action ;  and  he  has  placed 
within  us  the  moral  sense,  as  a  sentinel,  with  its 
intuitions  awakening  the  conscience,  and  warning 
us  of  what,  in  wants  or  means,  is  noxious  to  our 
moral  nature  with  more  certainty  than  the  senses 
of  taste  and  smell  tell  us  of  what  is  injurious  to 
our  physical  well-being.^ 

It  thus  appears  that  want,  constitutional,  ac- 
quired, or  cultivated,  is  the  source  of  eifort  for 
internal  as  well  as  external  change. 

The  desire  to  effect  some  change  in  the  existing 
or  anticipated  conditions  is  the  only  conceivable 
motive  for  the  action  of  any  rational  being. 
1  See  page  50  aud  51. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  67 

As  a  man  cannot  do  any  moral  wrong  in  doing 
what  he  believes  to  he  right,  his  knowledge, 
thongli  finite,  is  infallible  as  to  what  it  is  morally 
right  for  him  to  do  ;  and  his  fallibility  in  morals 
must  consist  in  his  liability  to  act  at  variance  with 
his  knowledge  or  conviction  of  right,  and  never 
in  deficiency  of  knowledge,  or  even  in  belief.  In 
this  view  his  knowledge  in  the  sphere  of  his  moral 
nature  is  infallible,  and  were  he  infinitely  wise  or 
certain  to  act  in  conformity  to  his  knowledge  of 
the  riuht,  he  would  be  infallible  in  his  morals. 

It  is  also  evident  that  the  mind  must  direct  its 
efforts  for  internal  change  by  means  of  its  knowl- 
edge, mcluding  its  preconceptions  of  the  charac- 
ter it  would  therein  build  up. 

Now  such  preconceptions  are  imaginary  con- 
structions, incipient  creations,  in  the  future. 

In  its  constructions  in  the  external,  the  mind 
does  not  of  necessity  even  consider  or  recognize 
the  already  existing  external  circumstances.  In 
"  castle  -  building,"  it  often  voluntarily  discards 
them,  and  forms  a  construction  entirely  from  its 
own  internal  resources.  Retaining  its  knowledge 
of  the  past,  and  having  the  power  of  abstraction, 
it  could  just  as  well  conceive  an  external  creation 
if  all  external  existences,  facts,  and  circumstances 
were  annihilated.     A  man   thus   isolated   might 


68  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

imagine  a  material  universe  in  whicli  all  is  in  his 
view  beautiful  and  good.  He  may  not  make,  nor 
even  intend  to  make,  the  additional  effort  to  actu- 
alize these  combinations  and  make  them  palpable 
to  others,  or  permanent  within  himself. 

He  has  merely  exercised  himself  in  constructive 
effort.  So,  too,  if  moved  by  the  aspirations  of 
his  spiritual  being,  he  may  conceive  a  moral  char- 
acter, pure  and  noble,  resisting  all  temptation  to 
evil,  and  conforming  with  energetic  and  persever- 
ing effort  to  all  virtuous  impulses  and  suggestions. 
Though  he  may  make  no  effort,  and  not  even  in- 
tend to  make  any,  to  realize  such  ideal  concep- 
tions, they  are  not  without  their  influence.  The 
constructions  thus  sportively  made  add  to  our 
knowledge  of  the  materials  of  character,  and  to 
our  skill  in  combining  them.  Poetry  and  fiction 
in  other  forms  present  us  with  such  constructions 
ready  formed  by  others. 

The  making:  of  such  constructions  as  harmonize 
with  our  conceptions  of  moral  excellence  is  in  it- 
self improving ;  a  determination  in  advance  by  per- 
severing: effort  to  conform  our  conduct  to  them  is 
a  greater  step,  and  the  persistent  effort  to  actualize 
them  when  the  occasion  for  their  practical  applica- 
tion has  arisen  is,  so  far  as  the  moral  nature  is 
concerned,  really  their  final  consimimation  ;    for 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  GO 

whether  the  proximate  object  of  the  effort  is  or 
is  not  attained  makes  no  difference  to  its  moral 
quality.  The  intent  or  motive  is  not  affected  by 
the  success  or  failure  of  the  effort.  The  external 
effect  is  but  the  tangible  evidence  to  others  of  the 
internal  effort  which,  with  the  intent,  is  the  real 
manifestation  of  the  moral  element.  If  a  man 
wills  to  do  an  act  which  is  good  and  noble,  it 
does  not  concern  his  virtue  whether  his  effort  be 
successful  or  otherwise,  the  effort  is  itseK  the  tri- 
umph in  him  of  the  good  and  noble  over  the  bad 
and  base,  and  the  persevering  effort  to  be  good 
and  noble  is  itself  being  good  and  noble. 

It  follows  from  these  positions  that,  as  regards 
the  moral  nature,  there  can  be  no  failure  except 
the  failure  to  will,  or  to  make  the  proper  effort. 
The  human  mind  with  its  want,  knowledge,  and 
facvdty  of  effort,  having  the  power  within  and 
from  itself  to  form  its  creative  preconceptions, 
and  to  will  their  actual  realization  independently 
of  any  other  cause  or  power,  up  to  the  point  of 
willing  is,  in  its  own  sphere,  an  independent  cre- 
ative first  cause.  Exterior  to  itself  it  may  not 
have  the  power  to  execute  what  it  wills,  it  may  be 
frustrated  by  other  external  forces.  Hence,  in  the 
external  the  ideal  incipient  creation  may  not  be 
consummated  by  finite  effort.    But  as  in  our  moral 


70  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

nature  the  willing,  tlie  persevering,  effort  is  itself 
the  consummation,  there  can  in  it  be  no  such  fail- 
ure ;  and  the  mind  in  it  is  therefore  not  only 
a  creative,  but  a  Supreme  Creative  First 
Cause. 

We  have,  then,  between  effort  in  the  sphere  of 
the  moral  nature  and  in  that  sphere  which  is  ex- 
ternal to  it  this  marked  difference ;  while  in  the 
external  there  must  be  something  beyond  the  ef- 
fort, i.  e.,  there  must  be  that  subsequent  change 
which  is  the  object  of  the  effort  before  the  crea- 
tion is  consummated,  in  the  sphere  of  the  moral 
nature  the  effort  for  the  time  being  is  itself  the 
consummation ;  and  this,  if  by  repetition,  ideal  or 
actual,  made  habitual  becomes  a  permanent  con- 
stituent of  the  character  which,  through  habitual 
action^  will  be  obvious  to  others ;  will  be  a  perma- 
nent palpahle  creation. 

In  his  internal  sphere,  then,  man  has  to  the  full- 
est extent  the  powers  in  which  he  is  so  deficient 
in  the  external.  In  it  he  can  make  his  incipient 
creations  palpable  and  permanent  constituents  of 
his  own  moral  character. 

§  19.  In  this  permanent  incorporation  of  them 
with  his  moral  nature  habit  has  a  very  important 
agency.  This  may  be  cultivated  and  its  efficiency 
increased  by  intelligent  attention,  and  through  it 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  71 

the  ideals,  the  scenic  representations  which  are 
continually  being  acted  in  the  theatre  within  us, 
may  be  made  available  in  advance  of  actual  expe- 
rience, for  which,  as  already  suggested,  they  serve 
as  a  substitute,  and  with  some  decided  advantages 
in  their  favor. 

In  the  sphere  of  its  own  moral  nature^  then, 
whatever  the  finite  mind  really  wills  is  as  immedi- 
ately and  as  certainly  executed  as  is  the  will  of 
Onniipotence  in  its  sphere  of  action,  for  the  will- 
ing in  such  case  is  itseK  the  final  accomplishment, 
the  terminal  effect,  of  the  creative  effort. 

We  must  here  be  careful  to  distinguish  between 
that  mere  abstract  judgment,  or  knowledge  of 
what  is  desirable  in  our  moral  nature,  and  the 
want  and  the  effort  to  attain  it.  A  man  may 
know  that  it  is  best  for  him  to  be  pure  and  noble, 
and  yet,  in  view  of  some  expected  or  habitual 
gratification,  not  only  not  want  to  be  now  pure 
and  noble,  but  be  absolutely  opposed  to  being 
made  so,  even  if  some  external  power  could  and 
would  effect  it  for  him.  We  may,  however,  re- 
mark that,  as  the  moral  quality  of  the  action  lies 
wholly  in  the  will,  and  no  other  being  can  will  for 
him,  to  be  morally  good  without  his  own  effort  is 
an  impossibility ;  all  that  any  other  being  can  do 
for  him  in  this  respect  is  to  increase  his  knowl- 


72  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FTEST  CAUSE. 

edge  and  excite  his  wants,  and  thus  induce  him 
to  jmt  forth  his  own  efforts.  Even  Omnipotence 
can  do  no  more  than  this,  for  to  make  a  man  vir- 
tuous without  his  own  volimtary  cooperation  in- 
volves a  contradiction.  The  increase  of  virtuous 
efforts  indicates  an  improvement  in  the  character 
of  the  cultivated  wants  and  an  increase  of  the 
knowledge  by  which  right  action  is  incited  and 
directed.  The  influence  of  such  knowledge  and 
w^ants,  becoming  persistent  and  fixed  by  habit, 
forms,  as  it  were,  the  substance  of  virtuous  char- 
acter. 

In  the  sphere  of  the  internal  as  well  as  in  the 
external,  the  last  we  know  of  our  agency  in  pro- 
ducing change  is  our  effort.  But  in  our  moral 
nature  the  effort  is  itself  the  consummation.  The 
effort  of  a  man  to  be  pure  and  noble  is  actually 
being  pure  and  noble.  The  virtue  in  the  time  of 
that  effort  all  lies  in,  or  in  and  within,  the  effort 
and  the  intent,  and  not  in  its  success  or  faihn^e. 
It  is  for  the  time  being  just  as  perfect  if  no  ex- 
ternal or  no  permanent  results  follow  the  effort. 
If  the  good  efforts  are  transitory,  the  moral  good- 
ness will  be  equally  so,  and  may  be  as  mere  flashes 
of  light  upon  the  gloom  of  a  settled  moral  de- 
pravity. 

§  20.  Nor  does  the  nature  of  the  actual  result- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  73 

ing  effect  make  any  difference  to  tlie  moral  qual- 
ity of  the  effort.  A  man's  intentions  may  be  most 
virtuous,  and  yet  the  actual  consequences  of  his 
efforts  be  most  pernicious.  On  the  other  hand,  a 
man  may  be  as  selfish  in  doing  acts  in  themselves 
beneficent  —  may  do  good  to  others  with  as  nar- 
row calculations  of  personal  benefit  —  as  in  doing 
those  acts  which  he  knows  will  be  most  injurious 
to  his  fellow-men ;  and  doing  such  good  for  self- 
ish ends  manifests  no  virtue,  whether  that  end  be 
making  money  or  reaching  heaven,  and  brings 
with  it  neither  the  self-approval  nor  the  elevat- 
ing influences  of  generous  seK-forgetting  or  self- 
sacrificing  action. 

A  man  who  is  honest  only  because  it  is  the 
more  gainful  would  be  dishonest  if  the  gains 
thereby  were  sufficiently  increased.  Such  honesty 
may  indicate  that  he  is  intelligent  and  discreet, 
but  virtue  is  not  reached  till  he  acts  not  from 
sordid  and  selfish  calculations,  but  from  a  sense  of 
right  and  duty.  And  virtue  is  not  consummated 
and  established  in  him  till  he  feels  the  wrong  doing 
as  a  wound,  leaving  a  blemish  on  the  beauty  and 
a  stain  on  the  purity  of  the  moral  character,  the 
preservation  and  improvement  of  which  has  be- 
come his  high  absorbing  interest,  and  the  construc- 
tion and   ideal  contemplation   of  which   he   has 


74  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

come  to  appreciate  and  to  value  above  all  other 
possessions  and  all  possible  acquisitions. 

The  consequences  of  a  volition  may  prove  that 
it  was  unwise,  but  cannot  affect  its  moral  status. 
If  at  the  time  of  the  effort  one  neither  did  nor 
omitted  to  do  anything  in  violation  of  his  own 
perceptions  or  sense  of  duty,  he  did  no  moral 
wrong,  and  any  subsequent  consequences  cannot 
change  the  moral  nature  of  the  -past  action.  No 
blame  or  wrong  can  be  imputed  to  one  who  did 
the  best  he  knew. 

Again,  no  moral  wrong  can  pertain  to  a  man 
for  any  event  in  which  he  has  had  and  could  have 
no  agency,  which  he  could  neither  promote  nor 
obstruct.  Until  he  has  put  forth  effort  against 
his  knowledge  of  duty,  or  omitted  to  put  it  forth 
in  conformity  with  this  knowledge,  there  can  be 
no  moral  wrong.  There  is  no  present  moral 
wrong,  either  in  the  knowledge  now  in  his  mind 
or  in  the  exciting  want  which  he  now  feels. 
There  may  have  been  moral  wrong  in  the  acquisi- 
tion of  any  knowledge,  or  in  the  omission  to  ac- 
quire any,  which  required  an  effort.  Such  acqui- 
sition or  omission  may  have  then  been  coimter  to 
his  conviction  of  right. 

There  can  be  no  moral  wrong  in  the  acquisition 
of  that  knowledge  which  he  unintentionally  ae- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  75 

quires.  That  a  man  involuntarily  knows  that  the 
sun  shines,  or  that  a  drum  is  beating,  cannot  be 
morally  wrong  in  itself.  So,  likewise,  that  any 
knowledge  now  actually  has  place  in  his  mind, 
can,  of  itself,  involve  no  present  moral  wi-ong 
doing,  though  the  fact  that  it  is  there  may  be 
evidence  of  a  previous  moral  wrong  committed 
in  its  acquisition.  This  he  cannot  now  prevent. 
Such  knowledge  may  have  so  polluted  his  moral 
nature,  that  it  will  require  an  effort  to  purify  it. 
The  polluting  arose  from  the  previous  effort  to 
acquire,  or,  negatively  from  not  making  the  effort 
to  prevent  acquiring,  and  not  from  the  mere  fact 
of  possessing  the  knowledge,  which  is  now  beyond 
his  control,  and  does  not,  of  itself,  alter  the  moral 
condition  from  that  state  in  which  the  wrong  of 
acquisition  left  it,  though  every  wrong  application 
of  it  may  do  so. 

So,  also,  in  regard  to  the  natural  wants.  There 
is  no  moral  wrong  in  the  mere  fact  of  their  recur- 
rence. There  may  be  moral  wrong  in  our  willing 
to  gratify  a  want  which  should  not  be  gratified,  or 
in  entertaining  or  cultivating  one  which  should 
be  discarded  or  eradicated,  or  in  the  time  or  in 
the  mode  of  the  gratification.  That  such  w'ant 
exists  at  all,  or  that  it  should  recur  at  such  time, 
may  be  proof  of  a  previous  wrong  effort  in  cidti- 


76  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

vating  the  want,  or  of  an  omission  to  control  or 
eradicate  it,  or  to  cultivate  some  conflicting  want ; 
but  if  its  present  recurrence  is  not  by  our  own 
effort,  such  recurrence,  of  itself,  can  involve  no 
present  moral  wrong,  and  merely  furnishes  the 
occasion  for  virtuous  effort  to  resist  what  is  WTong, 
or  to  foster  and  strengthen  what  is  right.  The 
want  may  indicate  the  present  condition  of  the 
moral  nature,  while  it  also  supplies  the  opportuni- 
ties which  make  both  imj)rovement  and  degen- 
eracy possible.  Though  that  condition  may  be 
comparatively  low  in  the  scale,  yet  an  effort  to 
advance  from  it  may  be  as  truly  and  purely  virtu- 
ous as  a  like  effort  at  any  higher  point. 

In  the  present  moment,  then,  the  knowledge 
and  the  want,  which  exist  prior  to  effort,  involve 
no  present  moral  right  and  wi'ong  ;  and  as  we  have 
already  shown  that  the  sequence  of  the  effort  does 
not,  it  follows  that  the  moral  right  and  wrong 
are  all  concentrated  in  the  effort,  or  act  of  loill, 
which  is  our  own  free  act. 

This  and  some  preceding  results  are  perhaps 
sufficiently  attested  by  the  consideration  that  the 
goodness  or  badness  in  which  one  has  no  agency, 
or  of  which  he  is  not  the  cause,  is  not  his  good- 
ness or  badness,  and  he  can  have  such  agency  or 
be  such  cause  only  by  his  act  of  will. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  11 

Efforts  to  be  pure  and  noble,  and  for  cor- 
responding external  action,  may  become  habitual, 
and  hence  comparatively  easy.  Through  habit, 
memory  performs  the  same  office  for  our  acquire- 
ments in  acting  that  it  does  for  our  acquisitions 
of  knowledge,  retaining  or  liolding  fast  what  is 
acquired.,  and  thus  lea\dng  the  mind  at  liberty  to 
employ  itself  in  new  acquisitions,  new  progress 
in  laiowledge,  including  modes  of  action. 

We  may  further  observe,  in  this  connection, 
that  our  moral  wants  are  more  under  the  control 
of  the  mind's  acts  of  will  than  the  physical  con- 
ditions of  bodily  wants  ;  and  though  we  cannot 
directly  will  not  to  think  of  a  thing,  yet,  by 
willing  to  think  of  something  else,  we  may  dis- 
place and  banish  other  thought ;  so,  too,  though 
we  cannot  directly  will  the  removal  of  a  want,  yet 
we  can  put  it  away  by  directing  our  attention  to 
something  else,  or  by  inducmg  another  want  in  its 
place.  And  though  this  is  especially  true  of  the 
moral  wants,  it  partially  applies  also  to  the  phys- 
ical. We  laiow,  for  instance,  that  by  exercise  and 
fasting  we  can  induce  hunger ;  and  we  may  find 
means  of  inducing  any  moral  want,  and  by  the 
use  of  these  means,  some  of  which  I  have  already 
suggested,  may  give  one  moral  want  a  preponder- 
ance over  another,  which,  by  repetition  becoming 


78  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

habitual,  will  go  far  to  eradicate  it  and  to  modify 
the  influence  even  of  a  physical  want. 

If  entirely  eradicated,  there  can  be  no  corre- 
sponding volition,  and  a  man  habitually  holy,  who 
has  eradicated  the  conflicting  wants,  has  annihi- 
lated the  conditions  requisite  to  his  willing  what 
is  unholy ;  and  as  he  cannot  be  unholy  except  by 
his  own  voluntary  act,  he  has  then  no  power  to  be 
unlioly.  This  is,  perhaps,  a  condition  to  which  a 
finite  •  moral  being  may  forever  approximate  but 
never  actually  reach,  never  attain  that  ^  condition 
in  which  it  is  absolutely  unable  to  will  what  is 
impure  and  ignoble. 

But  by  these  creative  efforts  fresh  elements  of 
moral  character  have  been  produced,  which  by  the 
assimilating  and  solidifying  forces  of  hahit  may 
become  permanent  accretions  to  the  moral  nature, 
a  second  nature,  not  less  secure  against  the  ordi- 
nary vicissitudes  and  temptations  of  life  than  the 
innate  or  earlier  acquired  principles  or  modes  of 
action. 

Through  the  knowledge  of  the  means  of  giving 
to  some  of  our  internal  wants  a  predominance 
over  others,  we  are  enabled  by  effort  to  influence 
our  moral  characteristics  at  their  very  source. 
Even  under  circumstances  least  favorable  to  the 
recognition    of  om-  spiritual  condition,  amid  the 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  79 

engrossments  of  sense,  tlie  excitements  of  passion, 
or  tlie  turmoil  of  absorbing  business,  external 
events  will  often  suggest  our  moral  wants,  while 
in  calm  and  thoughtful  moments  they  present 
themselves  as  spontaneously  as  thirst  in  a  sum- 
mer's day. 

§  21.  Having  now  shown  that  we  can  cultivate 
our  wants,  and  give  one  or  the  other  of  conflicting 
wants  the  ascendency,  and  promote  one  to  the  at 
least  partial  exclusion  of  others  ;  that  the  knowl- 
edge of  each  individual  as  to  what  is  morally 
right  for  him  is  infallible ;  that  the  mind  can 
form  an  ideal  construction  or  preconception  within 
itself  without  reference  to  any  external  existence  ; 
that  it  can  freely  make  efforts  to  realize  such  con- 
struction ;  and  that  nothing  beyond  the  effort  has 
any  influence  upon  the  moral  quality  of  the  effort, 
or  of  the  agent  making  it,  we  may  more  confi- 
dently than  before  deduce  the  conclusion,  that 
the  mind  in  the  sphere  of  its  own  moral  nature, 
applying  an  infallible  knowledge  which  it  pos- 
sesses to  material  purely  its  own,  may  conceive 
an  ideal  moral  creation,  and  then  realize  this  ideal 
in  an  actual  creation  by  and  in  its  own  act  of 
will ;  and  hence,  when  willing  in  the  sphere  of  his 
own  moral  nature,  man  is  not  only  a  creative  first 
cause,  but  a  supreme  creative  first  cause  ;   and, 


80  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

as  Ills  moral  nature  can  be  affected  only  by  bis 
own  act  of  will,  and  no  other  power  can  will,  or 
produce  his  own  act  of  wiU,  he  is  also,  in  the  sphere 
of  bis  moral  nature,  a  sole  creative  first  cause, 
though  still  a  finite  cause.  Other  intelligences 
may  aid  him  by  imparting  knowledge  ;  may  by 
word  or  action  instruct  him  in  the  architecture ; 
but  the  application  of  this  knowledge,  the  actual 
building,  must  be  by  himself  alone.  Though 
finite,  his  efficiency  as  cause,  in  this  sphere,  is  lim- 
ited only  by  that  limit  of  all  creative  power,  the 
incompatible,  or  contradictory ;  and  by  his  con- 
ceptions of  change  in  liis  moral  nature,  which  are 
dependent  upon  the  extent  of  his  knowledge  ;  and, 
in  this  view,  the  will  itself  having  no  bounds  of 
its  own,  may  be  regarded  as  infinite,  though  the 
range  for  its  action  is  finite  ;  or,  in  other  words, 
wdthiu  the  sphere  of  its  moral  nature,  the  finite 
mind  can  will  any  possible  change  of  which  it  can 
conceive,  or  of  which  it  can  form  a  preconcep- 
tion ;  and  as  the  willing  it  is  the  consummation 
of  this  preconception,  there  is  no  change  in  our 
moral  being,  which  we  can  conceive  of,  that  we 
have  not  the  ability  to  consummate  by  effort; 
and  as,  so  far  as  we  know,  our  power  to  conceive 
of  new  progress  —  to  form  new  conceptions  of 
change  —  enlarges  with  every  consummation  of 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  81 

a  previous  conception,  there  is  no  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  there  is  any  absolute  limit  to  our  moral 
sphere  of  effort ;  but  that  it  is  only  relatively  and 
temporarily  circumscribed  by  our  finite  percep- 
tions, which,  having  a  finite  rate  of  increase,  may 
forever  continue  to  expand  in  it  without  pressing 
on  its  outermost  bound  ;  and,  if  all  these  positions 
are  true,  every  intelligent  moral  being  capable  of 
conceivino-  of  higher  ethical  conditions  than  he  has 
yet  attained,  has  in  his  own  moral  nature,  for  the 
exercise  of  his  creative  powers,  an  infinite  sj)here, 
within  which,  with  knowledge  there  infallible,  he 
is  the  supreme  disposer ;  and  in  which,  without  his 
free  will,  nothing  is  made,  but  all  the  creations  in 
it  are  as  singly  and  solely  his  as  if  no  other  power 
or  cause  existed ;  and  for  which  he  is,  of  course, 
as  singly  and  solely  responsible  as  God  is  for  the 
creations  in  that  sphere  in  which  he  manifests  his 
creative  power,  though,  as  a  finite  created  being, 
man,  even  in  this  his  own  allotted  realm,  may 
still  be  properly  accountable  for  the  use  of  his 
creative  powers  to  him  who  gave  them. 

§  22.  The  gratification  of  some  of  our  physical 
wants  being  essential  to  our  present  existence, 
they  are  most  imperative  and  have  precedence, 
but  they  are  in  their  nature  limited  and  tempo- 
rary, and,  when  gratified,  cease  to  demand  our 
6 


82  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

effort.  In  this  their  function  seems  to  be  to 
train  the  mind  to  habits  of  persevering  effort, 
and  thus  fit  it  for  the  exercise  of  its  powers  in 
the  gratification  of  the  nobler  wants  of  its  moral 
being. 

In  contrast  with  our  physical,  our  spiritual 
wants  are  boundless  and  insatiable.  In  our  want 
for  progress  —  for  something  better  than  we  have 
3'et  attained  —  our  activity  fuids  an  illimitable 
sphere,  and  in  our  want  for  activity,  exhaustless 
sources  of  gratification. 

§  23.  The  examination  of  past  experience  and 
of  supposed  cases  may  in  some  sort  be  performed 
in  the  prosaic  mode  of  verbal  representation  or 
logical  reasoning  ;  but,  from  the  time  required,  it 
is  impossible  that  this  method  should  be  generally 
resorted  to,  and  when  it  is,  though  it  may  establish 
general  principles,  it  is  less  moving  and  has  a  less 
direct  influence  on  the  conduct  than  those  scenic 
representations  which  are  so  faithfully  acted  upon 
the  secluded  theatre  within  .  us.  Ideality  is  in 
this  respect  the  nearest  approach  to  reality. 

§  24.  There  is  peculiar  consolation  and  encour- 
agement in  the  fact  that  mind  possesses  in  these 
ideal  processes  an  inherent  power  of  modifying 
material  and  other  extrinsic  influences ;  that  it 
has  an  incentive  which  is  as  potent  in  our  spir- 
itual nature  as  sensation  is  in  om-  physical. 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  83 

Fortunately,  too,  the  occasions  of  life  which 
have  a  tendency  to  warp  the  disposition,  though 
frequent,  are  transient,  have  their  intervals,  and 
in  some  degree  neutralize  each  other.  The  ideal 
conceptions  may  always  be  brought  to  mind,  and 
if  we  habitually  encourage  the  presence  of  those 
only  which  are  pure  and  elevated,  we  shall  as  a 
consequence  become  more  and  more  refined  and 
ennobled. 

Without  this  countervailing  element  our  moral 
nature  would  seem  to  be  largely  the  sport  of 
chance,  liable  to  be  driven  from  its  j^roper  coarse 
by  every  current  of  feeling  and  every  storm  of 
passion.  Character  would  then  chiefly  depend  on 
accidental  extrinsic  circumstances. 

These  ideal  processes  early  give  a  pleasurable 
exercise  to  the  mind,  and,  like  other  sports  of 
youth,  are  a  preparation  for  sterner  work,  when 
from  the  inflexible  material  of  permanent  princi- 
ples we  would  construct  an  enduring  moral  char- 
acter. We  enact  these  scenic  representations  as 
an  alluring  gratification,  and  naturally  find  pleas- 
ure in  perfecting  our  ideal  creations. 

Our  first  creative  efforts  are  probably  in  the  ma- 
terial. The  child  early  forms  ideal  constructions, 
and  seeks  with  clay  or  blocks  to  give  them  a 
tangible    objective   existence.     It  thus  makes  its 


84  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

first  essays  in  creative  effort.  Its  efforts,  however, 
are  early  transferred  to  the  spiritual,  and  ideas  of 
moral  beauty  and  grandeur,  and  of  glory,  honor, 
and  renown,  as  the  results  of  lofty  character  and 
noble  action,  find  place  in  the  young  imagina- 
tion, and  furnish  the  materials  and  the  incentive 
to  such  ideal  constructions.  These  may  be  eva- 
nescent, but  in  vanishing  they  will  still  leave 
visions  of  grace,  beauty,  and  purity. 

We  are  thus  at  an  early  period  of  life  intro- 
duced into  the  domain  of  constructive  moral 
effort,  and  the  quickening  influence  which  the 
soul  receives  in  this  direction,  when  the  first  rev- 
elations of  unselfish  and  romantic  passion  fill  it 
with  ideals  of  loveliness,  grace,  and  elevation,  and 
inspire  it  with  pure  and  lofty  sentiment  and  ener- 
getic virtue,  attests  the  beneficent  provision  for 
our  early  moral  culture. 

But  these  benign  endowments,  so  potent  for 
good,  are  liable  to  be  perverted  to  evil.  We  have 
alluded  to  our  physical  wants  as  the  more  impera- 
tive, but  as  temporary,  leaving  us  much  interven- 
ing time  to  attend  to  the  spiritual.  The  influence 
of  these  temporal  wants  is,  however,  made  less  in- 
constant by  the  secondary  want  of  acquisition  ; 
the  want  to  provide  in  advance  the  means  of  grat- 
ifying the  primary  wants  when  they  recur.     To 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  85 

this  acquisitiveness,  even  when  gratification  of  the 
physical  wants  is  its  sole  object,  there  seems  to  be 
no  limit,  and  this  may  jiermanently  become  the 
habitual  object  of  effort  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
spiritual. 

To  restrain  the  influence  of  the  processes  of 
ideality  within  such  narrow  limits  is  unnatural. 
By  doing  so  the  individual  voluntarily  foregoes  the 
pleasures  which  arise  from  the  generous  emotions, 
cuts  off  their  connection  with  the  springs  of  ac- 
tion, and  substitutes  narrow  prudential  calcula- 
tions, low  cunning,  and  artifice,  which  cramp  and 
degrade  the  moral  nature,  and  exclude  its  finer 
feeling  and  nobler  aspirations. 

The  power  which  through  ideality  we  exert  over 
our  moral  nature,  though  less  nobly  exhibited,  is 
as  strongly  attested  in  its  degrading  as  in  its  ele- 
vating influences  ;  in  the  aggravation  of  selfish- 
ness, for  instance,  no  less  than  in  the  development 
of  the  generous  virtues.  In  the  latter  case,  it 
seems  to  advance  freely,  allured  by  the  delights 
which  attend  its  progress.  In  the  former  it  is 
forced  back  against  the  current  of  its  affections 
and   the    repulsion  of  conscious  self-debasement. 

It  seems  strange  that  a  labor  thus  painful  in 
its  performance  and  baneful  in  its  results  should 
ever   be   accomplished.     It  is  probably  in   most 


86  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

cases  hastily  done,  in  \dew  of  some  immediate 
gratification,  without  considering  its  permanent 
pernicious  influence,  and  finally  effected  and  con- 
firmed by  magnifying  the  advantages  of  selfish- 
ness, or  the  sacrifices  of  immediate  personal  inter- 
ests, which  a  yielding  to  generous  impidses  may 
have  occasioned.  The  avaricious  miser  looks 
upon  a  liberal  man  as  one  too  weak  to  subdue  the 
liberal  impulses  or  resist  the  pleasure  of  yielding 
to  them.  He  knows  the  pain  and  labor  which  his 
own  prudence  has  cost  him,  and  congratidates 
himself  on  his  exemj)tion  from  such  benevolent 
frailties. 

§  25.  The  elevating  influences  of  ideality  are 
needed  to  counteract  the  tendencies  of  a  social 
system  based  largely  on  selfishness,  and  to  neu- 
tralize the  utilitarian,  materialistic,  comfort-seek- 
ing proclivities  of  this  mechanical  and  commer- 
cial age. 

But  ideal  constructions  have  been  discouraged 
and  repressed  as  a  waste  of  time,  stigmatized  as 
mere  spray,  or  vapors,  idle  imaginings  leading  to 
groundless  hopes  and  illusive  views  of  life.  Re- 
lieving these  processes  from  obstruction  and  per- 
version, and  leaving  them  to  their  natural  course 
in  forming  the  moral  character,  would  be  a  very 
important  gain  on  present  conditions. 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  87 

And  this  might  be  affirmatively  supplemented 
by  systematic  education  in  this  mode  of  moral  cul- 
ture, making  the  ideal  constructions  a  subject  of 
study,  as  an  artist  now  studies  his  models  and 
pencil  sketches  with  a  view  to  their  reproduction 
in  more  perfect  and  permanent  forms. 

There  is  at  once  confirmation  of  our  theory 
and  encouragement  as  to  its  practical  application 
in  the  fact  that  woman,  to  whose  guiding  care  the 
infant  intelligence  is  naturally  confided,  is  by  her 
special  endowment  of  poetic  modes  of  thought  and 
expression  so  fidly  equipped  for  this  important 
work. 

I  deem  it  but  a  reasonable  anticipation  that 
whenever  this  means  of  moral  cidture  shall  begin 
to  be  appreciated,  and  even  moderately  developed, 
the  effects  upon  the  advancement,  upon  the  eleva- 
tion and  happiness,  of  mankind  will  be  such  as 
not  only  to  relieve  metaphysics  from  the  reproach 
of  being  unfruitful,  but  to  show  that  as  it  em- 
braces the  largest  and  grandest  realm  of  human 
thought,  it  is  productive  of  the  most  important 
and  elevated  utility,  a  utility  far  transcending  all 
that  has  been  realized  in  the  domain  of  the  ma- 
terial. 

When  philosophy  shall  have  fairly  entered 
upon  this  higher  sphere  of  mental  effort  for  men- 


88  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

tal  progress,  it  may  again  disdain  its  application 
to  any  less  elevated  or  less  elevating  pursuit.  But 
still,  when  from  their  celestial  lieigiits  its  votaries 
look  down  upon  the  enduring  and  beneficent 
achievement  of  their  predecessors,  upon  the  solid 
foundation  in  physical  science  upon  wliich  they 
are  themselves  building  their  more  ethereal  super- 
structure, we  may  trust  that  they  will  at  least 
concede  to  them  the  merit  of  having  faithfuUy, 
intelligently,  and  vigorously  performed  their  part 
in  the  more  humble  sphere  of  physical  research, 
and  will  accord  something  even  of  grandeur  and 
of  glory  to  an  age  which  from  the  chaotic  sense 
perceptions  evolved  a  material  universe  of  order 
and  beauty,  and,  taming  the  wild  forces  of  nature, 
made  them  subservient  to  the  enjoyment  and 
progress  of  man ;  enabling  him  without  excessive 
labor  to  make  that  ample  provision  for  his  phys- 
ical comforts  wdiich  w^as,  perhaps,  a  prerequisite 
condition  to  effort  for  a  higher  spiritual  culture. 

§  26.  In  metaphysics  the  progress  from  abstract 
speculation  to  practical  utility  has  not  differed 
from  that  of  the  other  sciences.  All  appear  to 
have  been  at  first  pursued  from  a  natural  love  of 
truth,  an  inherent  curiosity  stimulated  by  oppos- 
ing mysteries  without  reference  to  ulterior  benefit. 
Is  this  pursuit  but  the  manifestation  in  us  of  an 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE.  89 

instinct  nobler  in  its  nature  and  ministering  to 
liioher  purposes  than  those  which  are  essential  to 
our  physical  existence  ?  Or  may  not  it  and  the 
love  of  approbation  and  the  desire  for  fame  be 
properly  regarded  as  blind  appetites  of  an  ele- 
vated character  ? 

The  Greek  geometricians  when  patiently  inves- 
tigating the  conic  sections  had  no  thought  of  the 
use  which  a  Newton  would  make  of  their  discover- 
ies, and  when  Huyghens  discovered  the  polarity 
of  light  he  had  no  idea  that  the  sugar  refiner 
would  eventually  use  it  to  test  the  value,  for  liis 
purpose,  of  a  cargo  of  molasses. 

So,  too,  metaphj'^sics  has  been  wrought  upon  for 
affes  for  no  other  reason  than  that  it  furnished  a 
pleasurable  and  invigorating  exercise  to  the  intel- 
lect, a  utility  no  higher  or  more  direct  than  might 
be  derived  froia  whist  or  chess. 

§  27.  It  will  be  observed,  too,  that  the  solutions 
of  the  three  problems  which,  with  a  very  dim 
vision  of  their  consequences,  I  have  investigated, 
and  to  which  I  have  in  this  paper  invited  atten- 
tion, were,  if  not  essential  prerequisites,  very  im- 
portant aids  in  reaching  the  particular  practical 
utility  I  have  herein  suggested. 

The  first  of  these  was  the  analysis  of  the  funda- 
mental distinction  between  poetry  and  prose,  and 


90  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

the  finding  tliat  this  distinction  is  the  same  as 
that  between  the  two  cardinal  modes  by  which  we 
seek  for  truth. 

The  second  was  our  investigation  as  to  man's 
freedom  in  willing  and  the  fixing  his  status  as  an 
Independent  creative  power  in  the  universe;  the 
exercise  of  these  powers  in  the  external  being 
very  limited  and  liable  to  be  frustrated  by  other 
indejDendent  powers,  while  in  the  sphere  of  his 
own  internal  being  he  is  supreme,  and  can  there 
at  will  consummate  his  ideal  constructions  and 
make  them  palpable  and  persistent  while  he  so 
wills. 

The  third  was  the  inquiry  as  to  the  difference 
between  instinctive  and  rational  actions,  and  in 
this  incidentally  determining  the  nature  and  func- 
tions of  habit  by  which  these  subjective  construc- 
tions may  be  made  permanent  formations  of  the 
moral  character  and  incorporated  into  our  being 
as  a  second  nature. 

The  first  was  essential  to  the  discovery  and 
comprehension  of  the  creative  powers  which  in- 
here in  the  poetic  element,  and  to  the  apprecia- 
tion of  its  capabilities  in  its  especially  appropriate 
realm  of  the  spiritual,  and  its  important  agency 
in  there  forming  and  elevating  the  moral  char- 
acter. 


MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  91 

The  second  presents  the  proof  of  man's  free 
agency,  without  wliieh,  if  he  coukl  be  said  to  have 
a  moral  nature,  he  could  have  no  agency  in  its 
formation  or  improvement,  and  no  responsibility 
for  its  character.  If  he  could  be  said  to  have  any 
virtue,  he  could  have  no  means  or  opportunity  to 
manifest  it  in  action.  There  coidd  be  no  exhibi- 
tion of  it  in  beneficent  action  touching  liimself  or 
others,  and  he  could  not  use  his  creative  powers 
for  self-improvement  or  for  any  other  purpose. 

And  third,  without  the  agency  of  habit,  our  ac- 
quisitions in  moral  action  would  all  be  evanescent, 
and  there  could  no  more  be  progress  in  moral 
character  than  there  could  be  in  knowledge  with- 
out memory.  But  by  this  conservative  function 
of  habit  all  of  these  acquisitions  which  we  sanc- 
tion by  repetition  in  action,  or  by  harboring  in 
thought,  are  incorporated  into  and  become  perma- 
nent accretions  to  our  moral  character,  and  veri- 
table exponents  of  it.  That  our  own  action  is 
thus  required  in  the  formation  of  habits  brings 
them  in  their  incipiency  within  our  own  control ; 
but  from  the  greater  ease  wth  which  we  perform 
actions  for  which  we  have  the  plan  ready  formed, 
it  requires  energy  and  vigilance  to  prevent  fall- 
ing into  habits  which  our  judgment  does  not  ap- 
prove. To  eradicate  them  at  a  later  period  re- 
quires much  more  labor  and  increased  vigUance. 


92  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

§  28.  We  have  now  endeavored  to  show  that 
the  only  efficient  cause  of  which  we  have  any 
real  knowledge  is  mind  in  action,  and  that  there 
cannot  be  any  unintelligent  cause  whatever. 

That  every  being  endowed  with  knowledge,  feel- 
ing, and  volition  is,  in  virtue  of  these  attributes, 
a  self  active  independent  power,  and  in  a  sphere 
which  is  commensurate  with  its  knowledge  a  cre- 
ative first  cause  therein,  freely  exerting  its  powers 
to  modify  the  futui'e  and  make  it  different  from 
what  it  otherwise  would  be  ;  and  that  the  future  is 
always  the  composite  result  of  the  action  of  all 
such  intelligent  creative  beings. 

That  in  this  process  of  creating  the  future 
every  such  conative  being,  from  the  highest  to  the 
lowest,  acts  with  equal  and  perfect  freedom, 
though  each  one,  by  its  power  to  change  the  con- 
ditions to  be  acted  upon,  or  rather,  by  such  change 
of  the  conditions,  or  otherwise,  to  change  the 
knowledge  of  all  others,  may  influence  the  free 
action  of  any  or  all  of  them,  and  thus  cause  such 
free  action  of  others  to  be  different  from  what  but 
for  his  own  action  it  would  have  been. 

That  every  such  being  has  innately  the  ability 
to  will,  i.  e.,  make  effort,  which  is  self-acting ;  and 
also  the  knowledge  that  by  effort  it  can  put  in 
action  the  powers  by  which  it  produces  changes 
within  or  without  itself. 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  93 

That  the  only  conceivable  inducement  or  mo- 
tive of  such  being  to  effort  is  a  desire  —  a  want 
—  to  modify  the  future  for  the  gratification  of 
which  it  directs  its  effort,  by  means  of  its  knowl- 
edge. 

That  when  such  being  so  directs  its  effort  by 
means  of  its  innate  knowlege,  it  is  what  is  called 
an  instinctive  effort,  but  is  still  a  self-directed, 
and  consequently  2kfree^  effort. 

That  when  the  mode  or  plan  of  action  is  de- 
vised by  itself,  by  its  own  preliminary  effort,  it  is 
a  rational  action. 

That  when,  instead  of  devising  a  plan  for  the 
occasion,  we  through  memory  adopt  one  which  we 
have  previously  formed,  we  have  the  distinguish- 
insT  characteristic  of  habitual  action. 

In  the  instinctive  and  habitual  we  act  promptly 
from  a  plan  ready  formed  in  the  mind,  requiring 
no  premeditation  as  to  the  mode  or  plan  of  ac- 
tion. 

But  in  all  cases  our  effort  is  incited  by  our 
want,  and  directed  by  means  of  our  knowledge,  to 
the  desired  end,  which,  whatever  the  particular 
exciting  want,  is  always  to  in  some  way  affect 
the  future.  In  our  efforts  to  do  this  in  the  sphere 
external  to  us,  which  is  the  common  arena  of  all 
intelligent  activity,  we  are  liable  to  be  more  or 


94  MAN  A    CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE. 

less  counteracted  or  frustrated  by  tlie  efforts  of 
others.  In  it  man  is  a  co-worker  with  God  and 
with  all  other  conative  beings,  and  in  it  can  influ- 
ence the  actual  flow  of  events  only  in  a  degree 
somewhat  proportioned  to  his  limited  power  and 
knowledge. 

But  that  in  the  sphere  of  man's  own  moral  na- 
ture the  effort  is  itself  the  consummation  of  his 
creative  conceptions,  and  hence  in  this  sphere 
man  is  a  supreme  creative  first  cause,  limited 
in  the  effects  he  may  then  produce  only  by  that 
limit  of  his  knowledge  by  which  his  creative  pre- 
conceptions are  circumscribed. 

And  further,  that  as  a  man  directs  his  act  by 
means  of  his  knowledge,  and  can  morally  err  only 
by  hiowingly  willing  what  is  wi'ong,  his  knowl- 
edge as  to  this  is  infallible,  and  as  his  wnlling  is 
his  own  free  act,  an  act  which  no  other  being  or 
power  can  do  for  him,  he  is  in  the  sphere  of  his 
moral  nature  a  sole  creative  cause  solely  responsi- 
ble for  his  action  in  it. 

His  only  possible  moral  wrong  is  in  his  freely 
willing  counter  to  his  knowledge  of  right.  He 
must  have  known  the  wrong  at  the  time  he  willed 
or  it  would  not  be  a  moral  wrong.  Hence  the 
knowledge  by  which  he  directs  his  acts  of  will  is 
here  as  infallible  as  that  of  omniscience,  and  his 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  95 

power  to  will  witliin  the  limits  of  his  knowledge 
bciii""  unlimited,  he  cannot  excuse  himself  on  the 
ground  of    his  own  fallible  nature,  but  is  fully 
and    solely  responsible   for  all  the  wrong  he  in- 
tended, or  which  he  foresaw  and  might  by  right 
action  have   prevented.      Conversely,  a   rightful 
action  indicates  no  virtue  beyond  the  knowledge 
and  intent  of  the  actor.     The  failure  to  make  an 
effort  demanded  by  the  convictions  of  right  is  in 
itself  a  wronof.     That  in  the  domain  of  his  own 
moral  nature  man  is  thus  supreme  indicates  it  as 
his  especial  sphere  of  activity.     Ages  of  success- 
ful effort  in  the  material  has  been  the  preparation 
for  its  successful  occupation,  and  we  may  reason- 
ably expect  that  the  advance  into  the  more  ethe- 
real realm  of  the  spiritual  will  be  marked  by  the 
sublimest  efforts  of  pure  and  lofty  thought,  and 
that  the  results  in  it  will  be  the  crowning  glory 
of  all  utility. 

§  29.  In  favor  of  these  conclusions  and  against 
the  doctrines  of  necessity  and  of  sole  material  cau- 
sation, I  would  here  suggest  an  additional  argu- 
ment from  final  causes. 

I  cannot  demonstrate,  but  I  have  a  confiding 
faith  that  all  progress  in  truth  will  increase  the 
happiness  and  conduce  to  the  elevation  of  man, 
and  also  in  the  converse  of  this,  that  whatever 


96  MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

tends  to  climinisli  our  happiness  and  degrade  our 
position  will  be  found  to  be  erroneous. 

It  is  clear  that,  by  adopting  the   materialistic 
views,  we  should  be  deprived  of  all  the  dignity  of 
conscious  power,  and  with  it  of  all  the  cheering  and 
elevating  influences  of  the  performance  of  duty, 
for  that  which  has  no  power  can  have  no  duties. 
Instead  of  a  companionship  with  a  superior  intel- 
ligence, communicating  his  thoughts  to  us  in  the 
grandeur  and  beauty  of  the  material  universe,  — 
the  poetic  imagery,  the  poetic  language,  of  which 
it  is  the  pure  and  perfect  t^^^e,  —  and  in  his  yet 
hidier  and  more  immediate  manifestations  in  the 
soul,  we  should  be  doomed  to  an  inglorious  fellow- 
ship with  insensate  matter,  and  subjected  to  its 
blind  forces.      That  sublime    power,    that   gran- 
deur of  effort,  by  which  the  gifted  logician,  with 
resistless   demonstration,  permeates  and  subdues 
realms  which  it  tasks  the  imagination  to  traverse, 
and  that  yet  more  God-like  power  by  which  the 
poet   commands   light   to   be,    and   light   breaks 
through  chaos  upon  his  beautifid  creations,  would 
no  more  awaken  our  admiration  or  incite  us  to 
lofty  effort.     We  shoidd  be  degraded  from  the 
high   and    responsible    position   of    independent 
powers  in  the  universe,  co-workers  with  God  in 
creating  the  future,  to  a  condition  of  mere  ma- 


MAN  A   CREATIVE  FIRST   CAUSE.  97 

chines  and  instruments  operated  by  "  stimuli"  and 
"  molecules  ;  "  and  though  still  with  knowledge  aud 
sensibility  to  know  and  feel  our  degraded  position, 
—  "  so  abject,  yet  alive  "  —  with  no  power  to  ap- 
ply our  knowledge  in  effort  to  extricate  aud  to 
elevate  ourselves.  We  might  still  have  the  knowl- 
edge of  good  and  evil ;  but  haviug  no  powei-  to 
foster  the  one,  or  to  resist  the  other,  tliis  knowl- 
edge, with  all  its  inestimable  consequences,  all  the 
aspirations  which  it  awakens,  and  all  the  incen- 
tives to  noble  deeds  which  it  in  combination  %\ith 
effort  alone  makes  possible,  would  be  lost.  And 
this  dreary  debasement  woidd  be  unrelieved  by 
that  last  hope  which  now  mitigates  our  worst  de- 
spair, —  the  hope  that  death  will  bring  relief. 
For  all  mutation  now  being  but  changes  in  the 
indestructible  atoms  of  matter,  by  means  of  its 
motion  which  is  also  indestructible  and  eternal, 
there  would  be  little  left  to  die,  as  there  would 
as'ain  be  little  left  for  which  to  live.  For  all  this 
I  see  no  compensation  in  the  materialistic  doc- 
trines now  so  predominant. 

§  30.  We  have  observed  that  all  our  efforts  are 
incited  by  our  wants,  that  in  our  physical  nature 
there  is  an  innate  constitutional  provision  by 
which  they  recur  without  any  agency  of  our  own, 
and  there  seems  to  be  good  reason  to  believe  that 
7 


98  MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE. 

throngli  a  moral  sense,  or  other  constitutional  pro- 
vision, tlie  wants  of  our  spiritual  nature  also  re- 
cur without  our  bidding.  And  we  can  hardly  fail 
to  see  a  portion  of  this  provision  in  our  constantly 
recurring  aspirations  for  something  higher  and 
better  than  we  have  yet  attained ;  and  in  all  our 
aesthetic  tastes,  the  delicate  sensibilities  of  which 
are  continually  touched  by  the  significant  and 
suggestive  beauty,  harmony,  and  grandeur  of 
God's  visible  creations,  with  their  ever  varying 
expression  appealing  directly  to  the  soul  in  that 
poetic  language  of  imagery  and  analogy  which  is 
comprehended  by  all,  and  exerts  on  all  a  persua- 
sive and  elevating  influence.  We  are  thus  con- 
tinually reminded  of  the  wants  and  the  capacities 
of  our  spiritual  bemg,  for  no  one  capable  of  reflec- 
tion can  look  upon  the  exquisite  models,  the  vast, 
the  grand,  the  beautiful,  the  perfect,  thus  pre- 
sented to  us,  and  not  see  that  to  all  this  there  is  a 
counterpart;  that  there  is  something  which  per- 
ceives and  appreciates,  as  well  as  something  which 
is  perceived  and  appreciated ;  that  within  his  own 
being  there  is  an  inchoate  universe,  to  him  as 
boundless,  and  which  is  his  especial  sphere  of  cre- 
ative action.  Here  is  opened  to  his  efforts  an  in- 
finity of  space  in  which,  as  already  shown,  he  is  a 
supreme  creative  power,  a  sphere  already  canopied 


MAN  A  CREATIVE  FIRST  CAUSE.  99 

with  twinkling  thoug-hts,  dimly  revealing  the  cha^ 
otic  elements  requiring  his  efforts  to  reduce  to 
order  and  cultivate  into  beauty,  and  making  visi- 
ble a  darkness  which  continually  demands  from 
him  the  fiat,  "-Let  there  he  lights  Constructing 
this  universe  within  is  the  great  object  of  exist- 
ence, the  principal  if  not  the  sole  end  of  life. 

Happy  he  who,  faithfully  working  in  the  seclu- 
sion of  tliis  his  own  allotted  space,  so  constructs 
this  internal  universe,  that  when  from  the  genetic 
void  it  breaks  upon  the  gaze  of  superior  intelli- 
gences, all  the  sons  of  God  will  shout  for  joy,  and 
the  great  Architect  shall  himself  pronounce  it 
GOOD. 


NOTES. 


Note.  I. 
The  phrase  "  First  Cause "  is  used  not  in  relation  to 
time,  but  to  indicate  an  independent,  originating  cause. 

Note  II. 

I  have  elsewhere  defined  cause  to  be  "  that  which  pro- 
duces change."  Cause  always  implies  the  exercise  of  power, 
with  which  it  Is  often  very  nearly  identical.  When  this 
exercise  of  power  is  wholly  insufficient  and  produces  no 
effect,  it  will  perhaps  be  most  convenient  not  to  regard  it 
as  cause,  and  it  is  excluded  by  the  definition,  "  that  which 
produces  change." 

But  when  one  power  in  action  is  directly  counteracted 
by  another,  so  that  neither  produces  any  change,  but  only 
prevents  the  change  wliich  the  other  alone  would  produce, 
each  of  the  powers  is  still  effective,  and  perhaps  should  be 
regarded  as  cause,  —  the  cause  of  things  remaining  un- 
changed, —  and  a  better  definition  of  cause  may  be,  that 
which  makes  the  future  different  from  what  it  otherwise  loould 

he. 

Note  III. 

I  have  argued,  from  the  admitted  qualities  and  properties 
of  mind  and  matter,  that  mind  —  intelligence  —  in  action 
is  the  only  real  cause,  and  especially  that  this  alone  can 
begin  change.  That  in  virtue  of  its  distinguishing  charac- 
teristics of  feeling,  knowledge,  and  volition,  it  is  within  itself 
a  self-acting  cause,  capable  of  acting  without  being  first 
acted  upon,  and  being  thus  endowed  at  its  birth,  its  earliest 


102  NOTES. 

actions  —  the  instinctive  —  are,  like  all  its  subsequent  ones, 
voluntary  efforts  suggested  by  its  feelings  and  directed  by 
its  knowledge  to  tlie  change  desired.  That  the  knowledge 
essential  to  such  direction  of  the  effort  is  innate,  or  exists 
from  the  moment  of  birtla,  is  a  legitimate  inference,  because 
the  most  simple  that  the  observed  facts  admit  of,  and  at  the 
same  time  most  in  harmony  with  all  our  subsequent  ob- 
servation and  experience.  These  genetic  instinctive  actions 
are  thus  found  to  be  subject  to  the  same  conditions  as  our 
subsequent  rational  actions,  all  being  voluntary  actions, 
suggested  by  feeluig  and  directed  by  knowledge  to  the  end 
wanted. 

The  advocates  of  materialistic  causation  in  the  outset, 
as  might  have  been  anticipated,  encounter  serious  difficulty 
as  to  the  genesis  of  action  or  change.  For  the  inaugura- 
tion of  change,  a  self-active  power,  or  cause,  is  essential. 
We  do  not  differ  materially  as  to  the  problem  presented 
for  solution.  Baai,  one  of  the  most  able  and  thorough  ex- 
pounders of  the  materialistic  doctrine  says,  "the  link  be- 
tween action  and  feeling  for  the  end  of  promoting  the  pleas- 
ure of  exercise  is  the  precise  link  that  must  exist  from  the 
commencement  •  the  pleasure  results  from  the  movement,  and 
responds  by  sustaining  and  increasing  it.  The  delight  thus 
feeds  itself."  ^  Passing  over  some  of  the  many  assumptions  of 
this  statement,  I  would  inquire  how  began,  or  whence  came, 
this  "  commencement  "  of  this  "  movement"  from  which  re- 
sults the  pleasure  of  exercise  which  responds  by  sustaining  and 
increasing  it,  and  thus  feeds  itself?  In  the  same  paragraph,  in 
connection  with  such  muscular  exercise,  he  speaks  of  "  spon- 
taneous movements  being  commenced,"  and  after  it  says, 
"  We  must  suppose  the  rise  of  an  accidental  movement," 
and  again  of  "  the  random  tentatives  arising  through  sponta- 
neity." From  all  this  the  legitimate  inference  seems  to  be 
that  he  regards  these  movements  as  commencing  without 
any  cause  or  reason  whatever.  The  materialistic  theory 
could  reach  no  further  than  this,  and  here  stops  far  short  of 

1  The  Emotions  and  the  Will.    Will,  chap.  ii.  p.  315. 


NOTES.  103 

the  generalization  by  which  I  have  identified  these  genetic 
instinctive  movements  with  our  subsecjuent  voluntary,  ra- 
tional actions,  with  no  generic  difference  in  the  actions 
themselves,  which  are  only  distinguished  by  the  different 
manner  in  which  we  become  possessed  of  the  knowledge 
by  means  of  which  we  direct  our  efforts  to  produce  such 
movements. 

The  advocates  of  material  causation  rely  much  upon 
physiology  to  support  their  views,  and  think  they  find  em- 
pirical confirmation  of  them  in  the  phenomena  of  the 
nervous  system  —  its  material  structure  of  brain,  spinal 
column,  ganglions  and  nerve  centres,  with  its  comiecting 
and  permeating  nerve  fibres,  with  nerve  currents,  similar 
to  the  electric,  flowing  through  them.  This  is  a  very  inter- 
esting and  a  very  useful  branch  of  physiological  research, 
but  I  fail  to  see  its  bearing  upon  the  question  as  to  what  is 
the  efficient  cause,  and  what  its  nature  and  properties. 

Suppose  a  man  is  looking  at  the  macliinery  in  a  mill,  the 
propelling  power  of  which  is,  as  is  common,  in  a  separate 
room.  The  observer,  in  tracing  the  source  of  motion,  finds 
first  the  main  shaft  or  axis  coming  through  the  division 
wall  which  limits  his  sight,  and  upon  it  a  very  large  main 
or  driving  wheel,  or  pulley.  Tliis  main  shaft,  extending 
through  a  large  portion  of  the  room,  and  having  upon  it 
other  lesser  pidleys,  from  which  other  motion  is  comnmui- 
cated  by  belts  to  other  shafts  on  either  side,  and  from  these, 
and  in  some  cases  directly  from  the  main  shaft,  the  motion 
is  communicated  by  smaller  belts  to  the  various  machines, 
and  in  some  of  these  by  small  cords  to  each  portion  of 
them.  In  this  arrangement,  ^vith  its  large  driving  wheel 
at  the  head  of  the  main  shaft  with  other  pulleys  on  the 
same,  with  the  belts  leadmg  from  them  and  putting  other 
shafts  on  each  side  in  motion,  and  the  smaller  belts  and 
cords  giving  motion  to  each  separate  machine,  and  finally, 
in  some,  to  each  minute  individual  part  —  each  particular 
spindle  —  we  have  an  apparatus  very  analogous  to  that  of 
the  brain,   spinal    axis,  ganglia,   or    nervous   centres,  and 


104  NOTES. 

connecting  and  permeating  fibres  of  the  nervous  system  ; 
but  no  one,  by  any  examination  of  the  phenomena,  would, 
in  this  application  and  distribution  of  the  power  to  the  ma- 
chinery, learn  anything  as  to  the  nature  or  kind  of  power 
in  the  adjoining  room.  He  could  only  learu  what  it  could 
do.  He  could  not  even  tell  whether  it  was  a  steam-engine, 
or  a  water-wheel.  In  view  of  the  results  of  physical  science 
its  votaries  would  not  hesitate  to  assert  that,  be  it  what  it 
may,  the  solar  heat  is  one  of  the  intermediate  agencies  of 
its  efficacy,  and,  if  my  views  are  correct,  it  is  at  least 
equally  certain  that  in  regard  to  both  the  mill  and  the 
nervous  system  the  genesis  of  the  power  is  intelligence  in 
action. 

Many  of  Bain's  statements  as  to  the  spinal  axis,  the 
ganglia,  the  nerves  with  their  nerve  currents  and  counter 
currents  passing  to  and  fro  in  the  transmission  and  distri- 
bution of  power,  would  require  very  little  change  in  the 
phraseology  to  make  them  pertinent  to  the  shafts,  pulleys, 
and  belts  which  constitute  the  motor  appai\atus  of  the  mill. 
He  says,  "  When  the  mind  is  in  exercise  of  its  functions, 
the  physical  accompaniment  is  the  passing  and  repassing 
of  innumerable  streams  of  nervous  influence,"  and  as  an 
inference  from  this,  says,  "  It  seems  as  if  tee  might  say,  no 
currents,  no  mind."  ^ 

So,  too,  when  the  steam-engine,  or  other  motive  power, 
of  the  mill  is  performing  its  functions,  there  is  a  constant 
passmg  and  repassing  of  the  belts  through  which  its  power 
or  influence  is  distributed  and  communicated  to  the  ma- 
chinery ;  but  the  logical  inference  in  both  cases  seems  to  be, 
not  that  in  the  absence  of  these  movements  there  would  be 
no  power  or  cause,  but  simply  that  when  there  is  no  action  of 
the  power  or  cause  there  is  no  effect.  If  the  apparatus  ceased 
to  move,  we  could  not  thence  conclude  that  the  unseen  power 
had  ceased  to  exist.  It  miglit  be  merely  detached,  and  with 
undiminished  vigor  still  be  performing  its  functions,  and 
even  with  its  activity  increased,  by  being  rid  of  the  attach- 
ments which  had  encumbered  and  retarded  it. 

1  The  Senses  and  the  Intellect,  2il  edition,  §  25,  p.  66. 


NOTES.  105 

The  conclusion  of  Bain  assumes  that  the  "  passing  and 
repassing"  —  the  movement  —  is  itself  the  genetic  cause  to 
which  there  is  no  antecedent  cause.  He  thus  consistently 
puts  it  in  the  same  category  with  those  "accidental  move- 
ments "  and  "  random  tentatives  "  of  which  he  has  before 
spoken. 

Note  IV. 

If  we  call  the  knoidedge  by  which  we  direct  our  instinct- 
ive actions  innate,  and  all  that  we  subsequently  acquire  with- 
out effort  intuitive,  the  only  application  of  the  term  instinct- 
ive will  be  to  actions;  or  to  ideas,  or  knowledge  horn  in  us, 
after  our  own  birth,  without  our  agency.  Of  this  there  are 
some  indications  in  our  subsequent  experience. 

Note  V. 

In  my  father's  house  we  had  a  large  black  Newfound- 
land dog,  named  Gelert,  with  which  my  youngest  sister  and 
two  other  little  girls  had  much  amusement.  They  had  a 
little  carriage  in  which  they  harnessed  him,  he  seeming  to 
take  a  lively  interest  in  all  their  sports,  and  a  full  share  of 
the  enjoyment.  He  was  a  favorite  of  all  our  large  house- 
hold. At  one  time,  by  his  absence  at  night,  he  subjected 
himself  to  suspicion,  and  it  was  resolved  to  restrain  his 
nocturnal  wanderings,  but  for  several  successive  evenings 
thereafter  he  succeeded,  by  watching  his  oppoi'tunity,  in 
slipping  out  as  some  one  entered  the  back  door.  In- 
creased vigilance  at  last  prevented  this,  and  after  all  the 
household  were  in,  Gelert  found  a  bone,  he  had  himself 
probably  left  in  an  outer  room,  which  he  took  into  the 
kitchen  and  there  began  to  gnaw  it.  The  cook  did  not 
usually  permit  this,  but  on  this  occasion  refrained  froni 
driving  him  out,  and  he,  against  all  law  and  precedent, 
■witli  the  bone  in  his  mouth,  made  his  way  into  the  parlor, 
and  there  went  round  holding  it  up  to  each  person  in  turn. 
Gelert  had  evidently  devised  a  plan  similar  to  that  which 
Walter  Scott,  in  his  "  Quentin  Durward,"  ascribes  to  the 
Bohemian  Ilayraddin,  who  by  persistent  indecorous  conduct 
contrived  to  get  himself  turned  out  of  the  convent  of  Namur. 


106  NOTES. 

My  sisters  had  a  vigorous  and  very  intelligent  horse  that 
they  drove  for  many  years.  He  was  much  petted  and  al- 
lowed, in  their  rambles,  to  largely  exercise  his  own  discre- 
tion. If  he  saw  one  of  his  favorite  thistles  by  tlie  road-side 
he  would  turn  aside  to  crop  it.  He  was  usually  very  dis- 
creet, but  after  he  got  into  his  dotage  and  was  retired  from 
service  on  his  rations,  he  became  somewhat  colikh  and  mis- 
chievous. In  good  weather  he  was  generally  at  large,  and 
on  several  occasions  tried  to  entice  the  factory  team  to  run 
away,  by  going  near  them  as  they  stood  in  harness  and 
timiing  and  running  in  a  frolicsome  way  in  front  of  them. 
In  this  he  was  not  wholly  unsuccessful. 

He  would  untie  iiis  halter.  I  do  not  tliiidc  he  compre- 
hended the  intricacies  of  the  knot,  but  that  he  dealt  with  it 
as  a  man  does  with  a  tangled  skein,  the  convolutions  of 
wliicli  he  cannot  trace;  /.  e.,  he  shook  it,  and  pidled  at  it  in 
divers  ways,  till  he  found  a  part  that  would  yield  and  draw 
out.  Tom  would  thus  often  get  out  of  the  stable,  and  when 
some  one  attempted  to  catch  him,  he  would  playfully  let 
liim  get  near  and  then  spring  away  and  repeat  the  opera- 
tion. On  one  occasion  he  was  near  being  caught,  in  conse- 
quence of  treading  on  his  loose  halter,  but  he  presently 
seized  the  farther  end  of  it  in  his  teeth,  threw  up  liis  head 
with  a  triumphant  air,  and  trotted  off. 

I  had  a  horse  (Charlie)  of  the  Morgan  breed,  which  is 
noted  for  intelligence.  I  very  frequently  drove  him  to  one 
of  my  mills,  about  twelve  miles  from  my  home,  generally 
going  over  a  long  and  very  steep  hill,  but  sometimes  going 
around  it.  On  one  occasion,  I  had,  as  was  my  custom,  got 
out  of  the  carriage  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  to  walk  up  it,  but 
lingered  behind  to  pluck  some  wild  grapes.  Charlie  had 
got  some  distance  ahead,  when  he  came  to  the  fork  where 
the  road  around  the  liill  diverged.  I  saw  he  hesitated  a 
moment,  and  then  with  a  very  decided  step  took  the  road 
aromid.  I  called  out  Charlie,  and  he  immediately  tui-ned 
and  went  through  the  intervening  bushes  to  the  direct  road, 
though  in  doing  so,  he  had  now  to  go  up  a  very  steep  ascent, 


NOTES.  107 

with  no  path,  and  up  which  he  had  never  before  been.  He 
not  only  rationally  interpreted  my  calling  to  him,  but  cor- 
rectly estimated  the  relative  positions  of  the  two  roads,  and 
the  mode  of  getting  from  one  to  the  other,  in  which  he  had 
no  experience,  and  neither  this  nor  the  significance  of  my 
calling  are  in  the  province  of  instuict. 

On  another  occasion,  in  driving  Charlie,  I  took  an  apple 
from  my  pocket,  bit  it,  and  not  fuiding  it  to  my  taste,  cast 
it  aside.  Just  then  Charlie  came  to  a  liill,  slackened  his 
pace  and  stopped,  as  he  often  did,  to  see  if  I  would  get  out 
and  walk  up  it.  The  ascent  was  so  gradual  that  I  deemed 
his  suggestion  unreasonable,  and  said  "  Go  on,  Cliarlie," 
when  he  tiu-ned  his  face  toward  me,  and  made  such  an  un- 
mistakable movement  of  his  lips,  that  I  got  out  and  went 
back  a  few  steps  to  get  the  apple  for  him. 

My  youngest  brother,  Joseph,  had  a  short-haired  New- 
foundland dog,  named  Argus,  which  he  trained  with  care, 
and  it  became  an  excellent  retriever.  I  sometimes  got  him 
to  take  the  bridle  in  his  mouth  and  lead  a  saddle-horse 
from  the  mill  to  my  father's  house,  nearly  a  mile  distant. 

In  the  course  of  liis  training,  my  brother,  walking  by  a 
brook,  directed  the  dog  to  bring  a  speckled  turtle  that  he 
saw  in  the  grass.  This  was  so  repulsive  that  my  brother 
was  obliged  to  place  it  in  the  dog's  mouth,  but  he  soon 
dropped  it,  and  this  process  was  repeated  with  similar  re- 
sult, until  Argus  swam  across  the  stream  and  dropped  the 
turtle  on  the  other  side,  out  of  my  brother's  reach. 

On  one  occasion  my  brother  dropped  his  knife  in  a  large 
pasture,  and  after  walking  on  about  a  (piarter  of  a  mile, 
sent  Argus  back  to  find  it.  He  soon  returned,  but  brought 
nothing,  and  was  again  sent  back  with  the  same  result.  In 
a  third  effort  he  was  gone  a  long  time;  but  at  last  returning 
in  high  glee,  my  brother  felt  sure  he  had  been  successful, 
and  was  much  surprised  when  the  dog  laid  a  mass  of  earth 
at  his  feet,  in  which  was  a  cigar  stump  my  brotlier  had  cast 
aside  on  the  way.  The  dog  had  enveloped  the  cigar  stump 
with  earth,  and  so  protected  brought  it  in  his  mouth. 


108  NOTES. 

In  these  cases,  and  especially  in  the  eases  of  Gelert  with 
his  bone,  and  of  Argus  with  the  tobacco,  there  was  a 
marked  devising  of  a  plan  of  action  adapted  to  new  condi- 
tions, to  meet  new  exigencies,  and  this,  if  my  analysis  is 
correct,  is  the  especial  characteristic  of  rational,  as  distiu- 
gnished  from  instinctive,  action. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  impossibility  of  our  learning  to 
move  our  muscles  by  effort;  and  actions  which  we  readily 
perform  instinctively  might  bother  or  puzzle  us  to  do  by 
the  logical  or  ideal  processes. 

A  fast  trotting  horse,  if  he  attempted  to  move  his  four 
feet  by  premeditation  of  the  successive  movements  of  them, 
would  probably  mo, e  very  slowly  and  oidy  walk,  or  be  con- 
fused and  stumble.  The  difficulty  would  increase  with  the 
number  of  feet. 

"  The  centipede  was  happj'  quite, 
Until  a  toad,  in  fun, 
Said,  pra}'  whicli  leg  must  follow  which? 
That  work'd  her  mind  to  such  a  pitch, 
She  lay  distracted  in  a  ditch, 
Consid'ring  how  to  run." 

Most  men,  I  think,  if  they  attempted  to  make  some  of 
the  muscular  movements,  e.  g.,  of  the  eye,  by  rational  inves- 
tigation of  the  mode,  would  find  themselves  in  a  similar 
predicament. 

The  same  thing  occurs  in  regard  to  our  habitual  actions, 
and  especially  as  to  those  for  which  we  have  acquired  the 
mode  by  mere  memory,  without  the  aid  of  the  reasoning 
faculties.  We  can,  e.  g.,  often  write  a  word  off  hand  cor- 
rectly, when,  if  we  deliberate,  we  are  bothered,  and  some 
other  way  of  spellmg  it  seems  just  as  reasonable  and  as 
likely  to  be  right. 

Note  VI. 

There  are  cases  in  which,  knowing  the  circumstances,  we 
may  be  morally  certain  what  a  man's  volition  will  be.  A 
starving  man  will  eat  if  he  can.     A  man  will  try  to  escape 


NOTES.  109 

from  a  burning  house  in  which  he  is  about  to  be  enveloped 
in  the  flames.  It  is  said  that  horses  will  not  do  this,  but, 
when  in  danger  of  beuig  burned,  persistently  resist  being 
taken  from  their  stalls,  and  will  even  run  back  to  them  af- 
ter having  been  gotten  out  of  danger. 

An  incident  of  my  childhood  may  illustrate  this  action  of 
the  horse,  which  cannot  be  classed  with  the  instinctive. 

Before  I  was  five  j^ears  old  I  had  crossed  the  street  from 
my  father's  house  with  a  cousin,  a  little  girl  of  my  own  age, 
and  seeing  a  horse  and  carriage  coming  very  rapidly  to- 
wards us,  I  impulsively  ran  back  towards  our  house,  and 
called  to  my  cousin  to  do  so.  The  result  was  that  I  got 
over  safely,  but  my  cousin  was  knocked  down  by  the  horse, 
and  that  she  escaped  instant  death  and  without  even  serious 
injury,  was  deemed  miraculous.  The  mcident  made  a  deep 
impression  upon  me,  and  I  have  ahvaj's  remembered,  that  I 
thus  acted  because  I  thought  we  would  be  safe  only  on  the 
side  of  the  street  on  which  we  lived.  On  former  similar 
occasions,  I  had  found  that  I  was  there  in  no  danger,  but 
had  no  experience  as  to  the  other  side.  The  horse,  prob- 
ably by  association,  feels  safest  in  his  stall. 

Note  VII. 
Tliat  in  a  stiictly  logical  process  we  do  not  always  per- 
ceive a  result  in  advance  of  the  expression  for  it,  is  illus- 
trated by  an  incident  of  my  boyhood,  and  which,  at  the  time 
(Spring  of  1819),  I  had  no  idea  had  any  metaphysical  sig- 
nificance. I  knew  that  the  top  of  a  carriage  wheel  moved 
faster  than  the  bottom,  and  it  occurred  to  me  to  ascertain 
the  ratio.  My  thoughts  almost  immediately  took  this  form. 
Suppose  the  carriage  is  going  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  per 
hour,  then  the  velocity  of  the  periphery  of  the  wheel  round 
its  axis  is  ten  miles  per  hour,  and  the  bottom  point,  moving 
in  the  direction  of  the  tangent,  is  (by  this  motion  round  its 
axis)  moving  backward  at  the  rate  of  ten  miles  an  hour, 
wliile  at  same  time,  by  the  moving  of  the  whole  carriage,  it 
is  carried  forward  ten  miles  per  hour.     Here  are  two  mo- 


110  NOTES. 

tious  equal  and  opposite,  and  of  course  there  is  no  motion  at 
all.  I  was  astonished.  There  was  obviously  no  mistake  in 
the  reasoning,  and  yet  the  result  seemed  as  obviously  false. 
My  confidence  in  such  reasoning  was  not  less  than  in  the 
stability  of  the  law  of  gravitation,  and  if  I  had  seen  the 
rocks  about  me  suddeidy  move  upward,  I  could  not  have 
been  more  confounded.  The  relations  among  the  terms 
had  forced  me  to  a  conclusion,  which  I  not  only  had  not 
perceived  in  advance,  but  did  not  believe  when  I  reached 
it.  A  little  further  investigation,  however,  satisfied  me 
that  the  conclusion  was  correct,  and  enabled  me  to  prove 
and  illustrate  it  in  various  ways.  I  have  had  much  amuse- 
ment in  discussing  this  problem,  having  very  generally 
found  other  persons  as  much  astonished  at  the  result  as  I 
had  been. 

It  is  a  curious  fact  that  people  equally  confident  that  the 
bottom  point  does  move,  differ  as  to  whether  it  moves  back- 
ward or  forward.  One  evening  an  acquaintance  of  mine, 
then  recently  converted,  got  into  a  warm  discussion  with 
some  passengers  in  a  Southwestern  steamer.  They  all  as- 
serted that  the  bottom  point  did  move,  and  some  of  them,  in 
terms  more  forcible  than  urbane,  expressed  the  opinion  that 
only  a  fool  would  think  it  did  not.  I  was  within  hearing, 
and  being  called  upon  by  my  friend  went  to  his  aid,  and 
said  to  his  excited  opponents,  "  You  say  the  bottom  does 
move  ?  "  They  promptly  answered  yes,  but  some  of  them 
added,  "  or  how  coidd  it  go  round  on  the  axle  ?  "  while  others 
said,  "  or  how  could  it  keep  up  witli  the  carriage  ?  "  This 
indicated  diversity  in  their  views.  I  then  said,  "  Pray  tell 
me  which  way  it  moves,  backward  or  forward  ?  "  This  di- 
vided them  mto  two  very  nearly  equal  parties,  each  finally 
insisting  that  the  others  were  bigger  fools  than  those  who 
said  it  did  not  move  at  all.  My  friend  and  myself  soon  left 
them,  but  the  next  mornuig  we  fouud  some  of  them  still 
wrangling,  and  that  they  had  several  times  during  the  night 
examined  some  of  the  wheels  of  the  engine,  the  movement 
of  which,  each  party  claimed,  practically  sustamed  their  po- 


NOTES.  Ill 

sition.  Though  not  germane  to  the  present  inquiry,  I  will 
add  that  the  simple  fact  is,  that  the  lohole  wheel  is  revolv- 
ing about  its  bottom  point  as  a  centre.  The  velocity  of 
each  point  and  its  dii'cction  are  easily  asceitamed.  The 
centre  or  axis  of  the  wheel,  of  course,  goes  forward  just 
as  fast  as  the  carriage ;  the  bottom  not  moving  at  all,  the 
top  of  the  wheel  moves  just  twice  as  fast  as  the  carriage. 
Every  point  in  the  ascending  side  of  the  periphery  moves 
directly  towards  what  at  the  instant  is  the  top  of  the  wheel, 
and  every  point  on  the  descending  side  directly  from  it. 
The  first  tendency  to  motion  of  the  bottom  point  is  directly 
up,  i.  e.,  its  direction  at  its  start  from  the  bottom  point  is 
perpendicidar  ;  though  lilce  every  other  point  its  velocity 
and  direction  are  not  the  same  for  any  time,  still  the  first 
infinitesimal  nu)tion  of  the  bottom  pomt  is  iufinitesimally 
near  to  the  perpendicular. 

Note  VIII. 

The  important  function  of  language  as  the  instrument  of 
logic  indicates  the  importance  of  a  thorough  knowledge 
and  mastery  of  all  its  resources  to  enable  one  nicely  to  dis- 
criminate and  adapt  it  as  nearly  as  possible  to  the  finer  dis- 
tinctions and  shades  of  thought  which  exist  in  the  priniitive 
perceptions  of  things  and  ideas,  and  the  delicately  varied 
relations  among  them,  for  which,  in  the  logical  processes, 
verbal  symbols  are  substituted. 

Tliis  consideration  gives  additional  significance  to  the 
much  mooted  question  as  to  the  value  of  linguistic  studies, 
and  contributes  an  additional  argument  in  their  favor.  In 
regard  to  a  composite  language,  formed  as  ours  has  been, 
it  seems  obvious  that  without  a  liberal  acquaintance  with 
those  languages  from  which  it  has  been  largely  derived  and 
in  which  it  has  its  roots,  the  knowledge  of  our  o\vn  tongue 
must  be  very  imperfect.  Such  acquaintance  with  the  sources 
of  our  language  must  have  its  advantages  not  only  in  the  all- 
important  respects  of  greater  accuracy  in  the  meanuig  of 
the  terms,  and  nicer  precision,  discrimination,  and  clearness 


112  NOTES. 

in  their  use,  upon  which  the  soundness  of  cur  logical  con- 
clusions is  so  dependent,  but  also  in  the  greater  facility  and 
celerity  in  the  mental  processes  by  the  aid  thus  afforded  to 
the  memory,  the  knowledge  of  a  single  root  or  trunk  im- 
mediately suggesting  the  umuerous  br-anches  which  spring 
from  it. 

The  want  of  such  knowledge  is  perhaps  even  more  felt 
in  stating  the  results  of  the  logical  processes  than  in  their 
acquisition.  In  thinking,  if  at  a  loss  for  the  proper  word, 
we  can  for  the  moment  use  the  mental  perception  instead; 
and  if  in  writing  we  adopted  the  analogous  plan,  we  should 
insert  a  picture  of  the  thing  instead  of  the  name  of  it,  as  is 
often  done  in  children's  books. 

The  writer  is  unable  to  supplement  these  a  priori  conclu- 
sions with  any  affirmative  exjjerience,  and  can  only  say  that 
in  using  language  as  an  instrument  of  thought,  or  for  ex- 
pressmg  its  results,  he  has  felt  that  he  was  under  disadvan- 
tages both  as  to  precision  and  facility  wliich  a  fuller  knowl- 
edge of  languages,  and  especially  of  their  genetic  elements, 
would  have  obviated. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  resolution  of  algebraic  equations  as 
furnishing  the  purest  type  of  verbal  reasonmg.  For  these  a 
special  language  has  been  devised,  so  flexible  that  it  can  be 
readily  and  accurately  fitted  to  each  particular  case. 

But  the  relative  advantages  of  different  systems  of 
language,  or  of  other  symbols  for  ideas,  is  more  conspicuous 
in  the  greater  ease  with  which  we  deal  even  with  simple 
aritlunetical  problems  by  means  of  the  Arabic  system  of 
notation  as  compared  with  the  Roman.  More  extended  and 
intricate  calculations,  easily  accomplished  with  the  former, 
seem  almost  impracticable  with  the  latter. 

Those  who  insist  most  strongly  on  the  supremacy  of  the 
logical  processes  seem  most  prone  to  question  the  utility  of 
the  linguistic  studies  which,  in  the  views  I  have  presented, 
appear  to  be  most  important  aids  to  these  same  processes. 


NOTES.  113 

Note  A. 

By  this  definition  Edwards  makes  tlie  will  an  instrument 
of  the  mind,  and  then  speaks  of  the  freedom  of  the  icill. 
Under  such  a  definition  one  might  as  well  speak  of  the 
freedom  of  the  hammer  which  he  is  using  to  drive  a  nail, 
as  of  the  "  freedom  of  the  will."  The  definition  virtually 
begs  tlie  question. 

An  instrument  must  bo  controlled  and  directed  by  that 
whicih  uses  it,  and  hence,  if  I  liave  rightly  defined  freedom, 
cannot  be  free  ;  but  the  intelligent  power,  the  mind,  that 
controls  and  directs  it,  may  be. 

Note  B. 

There  is,  then,  in  the  attributes  of  instinct  and  reason,  no 
generic  difference  between  man  and  brutes.  They  are  com- 
mon to  both,  varying  only  in  degree.  The  ratio  of  the  in- 
stinctive to  the  rational  is  so  much  greater  in  brutes,  that 
it  is  generally  regarded  as  surpassing  that  of  man.  The 
three  fundamental  elements  of  mind,  knowledge,  feelin<r. 
and  volition,  are  also  common  to  both.  Brutes  have  less 
knowledge,  and  hence  the  sphere  of  their  voluntary  action 
is  more  limited,  but  I  see  no  reason  to  suppose  that  within 
this  sphere  there  is  any  limit  in  the  will  itself  —  any  bound 
to  their  volitional  ability  to  make  effort.  The  limit  in 
them,  as  in  the  higher  orders  of  intelligent  being,  is  always 
in  the  knowledge  of  a  mode  of  action  to  reach  the  end  de- 
sired, and  not  in  the  will.  Nor  is  there  any  reason  to  sup- 
pose that  the  bodily  senses  are  not  the  same  in  kind  in  man 
and  brutes,  and,  in  fact,  each  of  these  may  be  found  more 
acute  and  perfect  in  some  one  or  more  of  the  latter.  The 
reverse  seems  to  be  generally  true  of  the  mcMital  (Muotions. 
To  this  fear  seems  a  notable  exception,  and  perhaps  sur- 
prise, though  it  is  less  marked.  But  brutes  also  evince 
affection,  hatred,  revenge  ;  they  arc  elated  by  successful 
achievement,  and  depressed  by  failure  ;  they  have  emula- 
tion, and  manifest  priile  in  victory  and  shame  in  defeat. 
There  is  warrant  for  asserting  that  they  conte  mplate  beauty 


114  NOTES. 

and  deformity  with  different  emotions  ;  but  this  is  in  ' 
very  limited  sphere,  and  it  is  doubtful  if  they  recognize 
the  antithesis,  or  even  the  difference,  between  the  sublime 
and  the  ridiculous.  If  this  is  the  limit  of  their  most  ele- 
vated thought,  we  may  reasonably  assume  that  they  never 
rise  to  the  contemplation  or  the  conception  of  the  grandeur 
of  action  from  an  internal  personal  conviction  of  duly,  and 
that  it  is  the  addition  of  the  moral  sense  that  makes  the 
generic  distinction,  and  elevates  man  above  the  rest  of  the 
animal  creation. 


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